RandomCha

The Parallax View [1974]

1. The motorized vehicle slowly plows through the formation of tables, eventually coming to a stop.
2. On board the airplane, the flight attendant asks for his name and then writes it on a clipboard. She quotes him the price of the flight and he pays for it in cash. Once upon a time, it was actually possible to fly this way.
3. Medium closeup: Hume Cronyn removes the lid from the cup of coffee and throws it away. We hear it clatter onto the floor.

Klute [1971]

1. The charcoal drawing of JFK on the wall near her dessing table.
2. “Everyone knows everything. So it doesn’t matter what I do.”
3. Night. She sits with her legs up on the kitchen table. A glass of wine. She lights two candles then turns off the kitchen light, takes a hit from a roach and begins to sing part of a hymn.

Derrida [2002]

1. He enters a room filled floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves, crammed with books. He’s asked if he’s read them all. No, he says. I’ve read four. But I’ve read those four really, really well.
2. Derrida is a watching a TV on which is footage of him watching a TV on which is footage of him being interviewed.
3. The notion of the archive as a "responsibility to tomorrow." We will only know the value of an archive at a later time. Not tomorrow, but at a later time. And maybe not at all.

The trad med types are ga-ga about what a game-changing choice Palin is.  And they’re right. It is a game-changer. The Palin pick takes a race already leaning toward Obama and pushes it further into his corner.

It’s hard to put my feelings into words. It’s one of those exceedingly rare moments in a person’s life when you’re actually given ample notice to reflect in advance: "This is a historic moment. This is a moment that in some shape I will remember the rest of my life." 

Almost always, those kinds of moments are the bad ones. Working at Intelligentsia behind the counter the morning of 9/11; the moment Zach walked through the door of my apartment after getting back into town and me breaking up with him; the moment Mom confronted me with reading my diary which I had left out on the kitchen counter and me lying about not being gay. Much rarer are the moments like that the positive ones. The Laurie Anderson concert the evening of 9/11; the first time I kissed Andy, lying next to each other on my futon; standing behind my fourth grade class as they watched a video I had just finished making.

Last night’s speech was one of those positive moments.

And it feels like when it comes to Obama there will be many such moments for me. He articulates complicated feelings that I never knew were inside me, feelings about what it means to be a human being and an American at this weird time in history. All the contradiction and paradox. Andrew Sullivan nails it when he says, "This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away."

Tonight’s the night. Wouldn’t miss it for anything.

Becket  [1964]

1. O’Toole and Burton on their horses, across from each other on the beach. Two sets of tracks in the wet sand. The clouds in the sky behind O’Toole, marbled and stormy-looking.
2. The sword plunges down his back, cutting a red slit in his robe.
3. “I forbid you to gloat!”

It’s been one of those weeks where I feel like I’m being forced to do a few dozen things at once and, as a result, not doing any of them well. I hate that. 

I want to thank everyone for their Happy Birthday wishes last week, if I haven’t thanked you already.

Yesterday I talked on the phone with my sweet grandmother, who lives in Colorado, and she said, “Well, Denver is full of donkeys right now!”