I haven’t written much here lately, but I’ve been writing plenty elsewhere. It’s hard to find, let alone maintain, a balance between everything. So rather than try to find and maintain that balance at 10.15 pm on a Thursday night I will instead jot a few things randomly.
Last night at the Siskel I saw The Steel Helmet. Amazing. It has automatically joined the ranks of the finest war movies I’ve ever seen. There isn’t a wasted moment in the entire film. It’s like an amazingly lean short story in film form, so self-contained that it ends up saying volumes about larger issues like racism, treatment of prisoners of war, even the use of children in combat.
The screening was week one of the new Rosenbaum film lecture series. I’m going to try my damndest to make it each week. It’s just about the most eclectic selection of stuff I’ve ever seen programmed (even though it’s all from the 50’s). Rosenbaum is surprisingly easy-going behind the lectern.
Gabe was there and I said hi. I don’t know how that guy does it. He’s constantly in motion. I guess he never sleeps. Even ten years ago I was always sure to get plenty of sleep. Perhaps my next occasion to survive without much sleep will be in fifty years. Elderly people either don’t sleep much or else they sleep all the time.
Been applying for jobs like crazy but nothing doing yet. Everything is tolerable for now.
I seem to be having these mood swings all the time, from anywhere from three to a dozen times every day. Some of them stick around for such brief moments of time that, when they’re over, they don’t seem real. Elation, drowsiness, giddy excitement, nonplussed boredom, satisfaction, pride, despair. I often don’t know where they come from or where they go. I alternate between feeling that life is on a well-oiled, dependable track or is completely aimless. But this constant shifting is more disquieting than disturbing. I can even out my moods by losing myself in a movie, a book, or music. Been listening a lot to Don Byas’ recording of “Laura” … like his recording of “Jackie My Little Cat” with Bud Powell, it has a mysterious magnetism.
I’m looking forward to when it cools down, to when it’s gray and rainy. If I were in a jungle at a typewriter I think I could concentrate. But I’m not. I’m in a room that’s too humid, where all the ceiling fan does is to stir the stale air around. I’m tired of air conditioning. I want to be in Denmark, where a certain soon-to-be college graduate is right now.
An old friend is coming to visit in a few weeks. I haven’t seen him in almost ten years.
