"in between tonight and my tomorrows, tadzio where've you been?"
The week (but not) in review.
It was supposed to be a crap week, or atleast it seemed assuch initially, and yet it was not, not at all, though we didn't realize that until much later on.
1. The rule of 3: I've mentioned this before, I'm quite sure - it's the idea that all bad things come in threes. Now, generally, they're equally spaced out, and therefore one optimistically hopes that two will happen in quick succession, because the third will come along quickly (this is a huge idea in cultures with Spanish background; my parents swear by it, and here they frequently use the phrase "No hay dos sin tres" - my history teacher does so ominously, saying gleefully that the Spanish people have risen up and kicked out their king twice, so nothing should prevent them from doing it a third time; I was quick to retort, however, that Spain has also had ruthless dictators twice before, so one should hardly wish for the past to repeat itself). I've a hunch it probably has to do with the Holy Trinity or something of sorts. Regardless, on Tuesday, I was fairly convinced that said rule was in effect, in that 1) Monday night, my calling card had vanished, precisely when I needed to make a most-important call to the home-territories, 2) I had been stricken with a vicious case of insomnia that same night, and was incapable of sleeping until 8 a.m., causing me to oversleep, and 3) The oversleeping caused me to arrive slightly late to campus, where I wished to be one of the fortunate ones to get tickets to the special screening of the new Almodóvar film; I arrived seconds too late to join some peers at the front of the line, and being forced to go to the rear of said queue, I was subsequently only 10 students away when the Dean ran out of tickets.
2. The day improved, however. The tickets ran out at 11:20. I returned some films to the library and wrote a letter, after which I headed over to the St. Louis University campus to meet up with Claire, who had let me know about an [exciting] lecture to be given by a foreign correspondent, about said profession. I was half-expecting it to be this crap, drawn-out stuffy business with some old balding fellow rambling about how to load a story onto the wire service; quite on the contrary, however, our speaker was Danny Wood, the BBC's foreign correspondent in Madrid, a dynamic Australian fellow who was hilariously casual, amusingly unprepared, and spoke incredibly like Eddie Izzard (including the frequent "Um...yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah..."'s and etc.). Basically, this was awesome - besides being really funny, it was a total godsend in terms of clearing up stuff that, up until now, I had basically hypothesized and decided were rational (i.e. studying abroad being an excellent way of skipping directly to foreign correspondent work, rather than studying at home, getting a local job, hoping to get promoted to international, and eventually getting sent off to cover something somewhere abroad). Seriously, he answered all my questions and eased my doubts, so, yes, it was great just to know that "you've got your shit together". It really is great though, up till now I really had just been guessing about many of these things.
3. V IS FOR VENDETTA: In response to my post, Robin told me about this post, which is FANTASTIC, not just in this article, but in most all of them. It apparently belongs to some guy who is apparently her UM BFF, but for all I care it might as well be written by the Dickcissel ("Yelling Bird") on Indie Tits - that's how amusingly coarse, yet great, it is (personally, I enjoy the recurring metaphors involving Larry Wachowski's orifices). Other one's I've enjoyed: this one, this one, and this one.
4. What the fuck does "Dancing Wood" mean? I need to start writing in more clearly expressed terms if I expect to find any meaning in the things I jot down. There are dancing trees in Prince Caspian, which I finished reading last night, but I seriously doubt that I was, at any point, feeling the need to write about them on LiveJournal.
5. Into the Woods, meanwhile, is a 1987 musical by Stephen Sondheim; I discovered it over the summer of 2003 and got very familiar with it after Katie Godbey gave me the CD. It essentially covers all of the classic fairy tales, but interweaves them into this terrifically brilliant and imaginative tale. More fascinating, however, is the fact that it is quite dark (half the characters die by the end) and sexual in its humour; an excellent example are the two princes who marry Rapunzel and Cinderella, only to find, later on, that they are not as captivated by them as the two women they have more recently stumbled upon, a sleeping damsel incased in a coffin of glass, and another dormant beauty behind a prickly thicket [sadly, the first prince has an unnatural fear of dwarfs ("Dwarves!"), and the second has an inordinate fear of blood (which might rationally be drawn by pricking one's hand on the thick thicket)]. Incredibly fascinating, I find, is the fact that the musical is actually based on Freudian analyst / sociologist Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment, which interpreted fairy tales as conveyors of societal lessons / norms, especially dealing with sexual matters (Little Red Riding Hood, for example, was considered by him to be a tale about the loss of sexual innocence, and Jack and the Beanstalk about phallic aggression). While Into the Woods doesn't go so far (except when it does), it does make powerful points about the selfishness and incontinence of humanity, even after they've achieved / received what they think that they want, and what they always claimed would make them happy if only they possessed it. The lyrics are great though, give it a listen.
6. Oohhhhh - it's not "Dancing Wood" after all - it's totally "Danny Wood" - I was reminding myself to mention the whole BBC thing. Cool. Check.
7. Radio Dismuke, playing all the hits of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, is pretty great as well, honestly.
8. Volver: Remember how I hadn't gotten tickets to go see that Almodóvar screening at my university? Well, this was particularly frustrating because part of the cast was coming and, god, I really love Carmen Maura, who starts (alongside vomiticious Pene Cruz [who wasn't all that bad in this one]) in the film. So, I decided that there were bound to be people who weren't going to show up, so I decided to risk it and stand by the entrance to the little Escuela de CC. de la Com. movie theatre to see if the Dean would let me in, as he's done with other students in previous screenings when there are free seats available. By some glorious fortune, so it was, and thus I was let in at the last moment and was able to grab a nice balcony seat.
Volver is quite different from the other Almodóvar films I've seen; for one, no transvestites (I know, I know, I was shocked as well). It's still Almodóvar - there's a Cuban prostitute featured - but it is a very different Almodóvar. The film is a black comedy, but a very dreamy and subdued one, and you can tell that there is a wholly different level of maturity that wasn't present in his last comedy, Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, which was more along the lines of hysterical / melodramatic, farcical humour. I still feel that Todo Sobre Mi Madre is his finest film, but this one isn't bad, at all - despite being over two hours long, it is very comfortable, and feels more like a short story than anything else. It is filmed in Castilla La Mancha, and it affords some really charming views of the countryside and of the typical small Spanish towns, and the houses with the interior patios and tiles and so on, as well as views of some of the uglier, newer urban projects in Madrid (sharp contrast from the lush settings in Todo Sobre Mi Madre, for example, and more along the lines of ¿Qué He Hecho Yo Para Mercer Esto!!). It is a valentine to women, though, and quite beautiful, and affords views of traditions, superstitions, and magical realism in a way that reminded me verymuch of Isabel Allende, and all of this makes it well-worth seeing, so do, when it comes, which it shall. And yes.
9. After the screening the cast took the stage to answer our questions for a long spell, and it was great, if only because it very quickly became clear to me that Carmen Maura is every bit the character that she played in Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios - in short, she is a gloriously self-confident (arrogant, even) woman who is, well, quite a bit of a pushy bitch...and I love her for it. Even though she was sharing the stage with two other award-winning actresses, including Lola Dueñas (the woman on the extreme left, who had a critically-acclaimed role in Amenábar's Mar Adentro), Maura basically dominated over the proceedings, while at the same time appearing partially uninterested - and yet just when you thought that she didn't care, at all, she would suddenly interrupt and hijack another actress' answers to the audience's questions. Photos:
In this first picture, Blanca Portillo (extreme left) answers a question from the audience, Maura fiddles with what may have been a radio.
In the middle of another response from the same actress, and about half a second after this picture was taken, Maura interrupts and basically contradicts everything that the other woman has said. A bit later on, Maura goes on to get into a catfight with Lola Dueñas, the actress on the extreme left (see next picture): A student asks if Almodóvar gives the actors much liberty as a director, in terms of interpretation. Maura, who has been feuding with Almodóvar since the late 80s, retorts, "Of course not! Pepe doesn't know what liberty is!" Dueñas then cautiously says that he had actually been receptive to some of her suggestions on how to portray the character. Maura laughs, tosses her hair, and says that, clearly, when that had happened, either he must have been drugged or she [Dueñas] must have been delusional. At which point the Dean steps in and quickly asks for the next question from the audience, as Dueñas flashes Maura a look of death and Maura, in turn, beams a smile at the audience.
By the latter half of the conference, the other actresses have succumbed to Maura's dominance. She, triumphant, prattles on cheerfully, though while still not being above simply dismissing questions she doesn't like and loudly qualifying them as "Stupid".
She is, in short, fucking awesome. I enjoy strong women. Maybe it's Freud, maybe it's Bettelheim, but I've a feeling that my mother probably accounts, atleast in part, for my affinity towards the bustling autocratic ladies.
10. After the conference, as per usual, there was a mad scramble to make it onto the stage and get autographs from the actresses. Whereas the Brokeback Mountain post-screening conference had been attended by relatively few, this film had packed the cinema, and very quickly a mob scene of students elbowing and pushing formed. While the other actresses humored the students and happily signed away, Maura mentioned that her wrist was getting tired by autograph number 15, muttered that she was getting annoyed [presumably by signing] by autograph 20, and she simply got up and left at autograph 25, saying the Spanish equivalent of "Well brats, I'm out of here." Cunningly, however, guess who was one of the lucky 25? And what's more, guess who got an even more exciting souvenir out of it, with an unusually cheerful side of the despotic movie queen?
"SCORE!", I say.
11. I hung out in the cafeteria with the fellow-travelers from class after the screening (how amusingly stereotypical - they would be the solid Almodóvar fan-base, wouldn’t they? - then again, so are my parents); I like my peers generally, and I rather like these kids in particular as well. These were the same that passed me some missing notes during the exam preparation period and told me that what was important to them was for the entire class to pass rather than for a few to get awesome grades and for everyone else to fail; the same degree of openness and solidarity was present once again, so either the kids are just enormously open-hearted with everyone, or someone is trying to get into my pants. Whatever the case, I enjoy the abstractness of their friendly conversation and their lack of hesitation in discussing personal topics in front of essentially complete strangers. At some point someone read my horoscope, which predicted successes in areas relating to professional matters during the week.
12. Today I showed up to class only to be promptly informed by our class delegate that today had been selected as the date upon which I was to meet with the distinguished Pilar Equiza Escudero. Equiza, for those of you who may have forgotten, was my Written Communication professor during the first semester; throughout her half of the course, we would write an article each day, with but some quickly read information as facts and 45 minutes in which to work those loose ideas into a story. Equiza, then, would collect them and grade them, though we would have no idea what we had scored until the fateful day upon which we were called to her office for the yearly meeting - in order to accommodate all 160 students, she cancelled her office hours, and instead arranged for us to meet with her one time only, for a full, intense 45 minutes.
Had I known today was the day I would have, for example, slept last night. Or, perhaps, I would have worn a nice collared shirt instead of my Cruzcampo Beer t-shirt. But so were things, and I, along with two other students, were called down. Now, I was expecting the worst. I have a few peers that have been called down, and this woman is ruthless (she's a former editor of Spain's equivalent of The New York Times): she told one of them that he should immediately change majors, as he had no capacity for writing and would never be even a mediocre journalist. In other words, holy shit. By some grace of god, however, she actually really liked my articles, and had given them high scores, which was reassuring; more shocking was when she told me that I definitely had serious potential for creative / editorial writing and that my informative writing was strong enough that she was confident that I could become an excellent reporter. Somewhere between the compliments we got into a fairly hilarious argument in which I think I may have insulted her (and I think she may have liked it, in a "he's got balls, and I like that" sort of way), and then afterwards we ended up getting chummy-chummy when we realized, through side comments, that we had both been born in Pamplona, we had both attended the Universidad de Navarra, and we had both left it and moved to Madrid because of our issues with the Opus Dei. In short, even half-asleep and wearing a beer shirt, I'm in like sin with the hardbaked, tough-old-broad editor-lady. And that, m'boys, is gold.
13. Despite it having been an enormously busy week, all things considered, I attended only two hours of class. There was no school on Monday. I felt like crap on Tuesday, so I went home after the Danny Wood lecture. Wednesday all my classes save one were cancelled, and the remaining one was taught by my Linguistics "Hey-there-are-relatively-few-kids-here-so-let's-just-call-off-the-class" professor, so I buggered off. Thursday was the Almodóvar screening, so I missed again, and then today [Friday] I went to the Bolshevik's class, but was prevented from attending my Written Communications class because of the meeting with the Equiza.
14. As if all of that weren't enough, I tried out for a pseudo-reportership for this new online magazine this week; it's random - a friend of Maria's is starting a gaming magazine, and he got in touch with me after Maria told him about me and asked if I'd be interested in writing for them and covering press conferences, especially those held by the American companies. I said yes, so they asked me to write a trial article, and apparently they liked it and I've been chosen. This is pleasant enough in itself, but the reporter who interviewed me sent me the comments from the editor who read my article (who is also the editor of this major Madrid newspaper, which is awesome), and the guy wrote, simply: Me parece genial, en serio...Sin faltas, claro y ameno. Un muy buen fichaje. ("I think it's brilliant, seriously...no errors, clear and concise. [He's] an excellent acquisition."] Hahahaha...I enjoy being referred to as "an excellent acquisition".
15. Lessons we learned (or atleast picked up on) this week: thrice this week, "bad" things happened, all having to deal with me and my conflicts with time. Oversleeping and being late to the line almost cost me the film entrance; I went to buy the train tickets to Paris way too late and found that they were already sold out for the month; the forementioned article was requested for Wednesday - I got a one day extension, but an oversleeping situation similar to the one from Tuesday found me rushing at Thursday noon and I left the flat and headed to school in a rush, completely forgetting to mail in the article until about 11 p.m. of that night. Despite numbering three, all of these things worked out: I got into the screening; I'm flying to Paris (and staying April 5 - 20) instead of training, for the same exact price; ultimately there was no big issue with my turning in the article at such a late hour. But, we recognise that we have been unnaturally blessed this week, and that things will not always turn out so greatly in our favour, so we are resolved to be a bit more attentive to time, and realistic as well (i.e., you have an hour to get ready: realistically, you will not be able to breakfast, shower, shave, iron clothing, dress, check your mail, change the songs on your mp3 player and stop by the ATM before the time at which you must absolutely positively head out to school, so decide which of those activities you must foresake), and so-forth. Hubris, we anticipate thee, and thus stride to avoid you.
16. Oh, and I love that sinewy cow, which reminds me of childhood art books. Hurrah, Blaue Reiter group, hurrah Marc, Klee, early Kadinsky, et al.
17. For the first time, ever, I fell asleep while writing this post. I don't even think it's that long (I've written longer, certainly), but I've been suffering through a serious insomnia spell, having not slept more than 4 hours during each night this week, and it finally caught up to me, around point number 13. I awoke at 4, which my head reclined on the border of the keyboard; it is now 8, and after having woken up and replenished my thirst, I am going to publish and go back to bed. Maria just got up and she thinks I've been up all night; at the moment she is wandering about the flat, half talking to me and half talking to herself, expounding sleepily on how unhealthy is for me not to sleep. I think it will be perfect f I go to sleep now, if only to have her realize that her chatting has lulled me into the unconscious. Night / morning, kids.