617660 o mirror in th sky what is love
ffffuh. Left nostril go: drip, drip, drip, drip. Right one says, "Everything clear here. Fuck's wrong w/ you?"
Rome and Natalie and I are writing a movie about monsters, and @ th end of January we are heading down to Punta Cana to film it. On th one hand, this is how I always wanted life to be: creative and collaborative, growing from a feeling of closeness between one mind and another. On th other hand, I am coughing my throat inside out and cannot stop myself from making a big private show of my personal suffering: a monologue about how nobody likes me when I am weak, about how th only civilized way to share suffering is to make it a joke. It's just a cough and a case of th chills, but I am getting th bleakest mileage out of it.
In one scene in our movie, our HERO, a man in his early to mid 20s w/ a swimmerly physique and a lazy confident stride, navigates a crowded boardwalk and interrogates himself about climate change, in voiceover.
HEROLet's talk about th weather, since it's th first thing we have in common. Dominican weather is hot and sticky year round, which makes it easier for me to pretend every day is Christmas. Every day is th same day, w/ occasional hurricanes between June and November. My father told me, "Don't believe in movies. We are not born in spring, and we do not die in winter. Those are things white men do." Now I am old enough to see that he was right, that we live and die by heat, but I am not sure of his point. Are we meant to get used to it, th way we get used to hard work? Might it not be more respectable to pursue relentlessly th cool and th shade? Building an air-conditioned world inside a tropical one is hard work in its own right, as my father should well know. He likes to joke, "If you are a rich man, you can choose yr own weather."
HERO stops @ a kiosk owned by an INNOVATIVE LADY and orders a fish sandwich, except th "bread" in this "sandwich" is not bread @ all, but two baked plantain slices. She hands him th "sandwich", which looks strangely delicious.
INNOVATIVE LADYI invented this. Breadless sandwich. Don't look so shocked.
HEROI'm not shocked. I ordered th same thing yesterday. It's very good.
INNOVATIVE LADYOh. I must have mistaken today for yesterday.
HERO
(chewing)Well, it's shockingly tasty. Maybe that is what you saw in my face.
INNOVATIVE LADYI don't mind if you are shocked, sir. Men often look that way when they are losing their virginity.
HERO
(after a confused pause)Listen, it's possible I have mistaken yesterday for today, and this is my first time. It's really quite good.
INNOVATIVE LADYThank you. I invented it myself.
Hero finishes "sandwich", keeps on walking.
HEROThat "sandwich" girl is bats. She's got me all turned around. Is today Wednesday or Thursday? What exactly was in that "sandwich"? Did I remember to turn th oven off? Today is Christmas 1985: I am 1 year old, and my mother has given me a boombox w/ dual cassette decks. That can't be right. I am 12 years old, and I requested that boombox, and now I can dub my favourite songs from one cassette to another. I'll put "I Would Die 4 U" next to "Everything She Wants" and "Goonies R Good Enough". Today is New Year's Eve on th cusp of 2014, and I am th world's best-known Dominican, more famous than Manny Ramírez and Fabolous; but everybody is too busy keeping themselves cool to notice me. Global warming is real, dummy. I never turned th oven on in th first place because I do not know how to cook. I am perhaps th world's most famous 12-year-old in 2014. I am 12 years old in 1959, and my best friends and I have found th dead body of a missing boy. Now what do we do? I'm 12 in 1996, and a scary monster who looks like no girl I have ever seen before is pinning me to th grass. She's hurting my arm and I think she is about to bite my face. It's so hot out here, whenever we are. I do know how to cook. I am cooking.
Hero passes out.
When he wakes up, he is face-down on th beach. He flips himself onto his back and gazes cloudward.
HERO (CONT'D)Keeping oneself adequately hydrated is serious business in tropical climates, remember. Heat is a demon that will possess you if you are careless. It is funny how certain sensations will connect a man directly back to his childhood; a fever, for instance, is an especially strong conduit between childhood and adulthood. What man will not find in himself a yearning for a bowl of hot soup brought to his bed on a tray, a cool wet towel across his forehead, and th concerned parental hand resting for a moment, diagnostically, against his cheek: "Oohh, you are a bit warm, aren't you?" I'm getting older, but these sorts of feelings reach across time and remind me of how much has not changed. Heat now and heat 20 years ago are remarkably consistent. And what else? Loneliness? Does it not also leap decades w/o losing its original vigor? I'm reminded of th curious case of Frédéric Bourdin, th self-dubbed "Chameleon from Nantes", who throughout his 20s and early 30s serially impersonated orphaned teenagers in order to get himself admitted to orphanages, youth shelters, secondary schools, and foster homes. His aim appears to have been neither sexual nor monetary, but only to collect th attention, care, and affection that had gone missing in his literal childhood. Bourdin's later cons required him to wear a baseball cap @ all times to conceal his rapidly-receding hairline. It no longer surprises me what people will do to get loved, what they will believe for love, and forgive for love.
Hero gets up, continues walking, buys bottle of water, drinks it all in one chug.
HERO (CONT'D)There are a couple more crazy impulses implicit in Bourdin's crimes. One is to tell stories. One is to win games. Love-starved or not, you cannot be a balding 30-year-old masquerading as an abused, orphaned 15-year-old w/o in some way loving th lie itself. My father told me, "There are storytellers, and there are story carriers. Baseball players are story carriers. For them th script is written. It is only a matter of deciding who is doing th fucking, and who is getting fucked." My father loves baseball and believes that men who play games are far more trustworthy than men who invent games. "There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head-to-head combat," said America's greatest footballer. To me, American football looks like homosexual bodybuilders furiously rubbing on one another. But my father always did say that I liked to invent games and was therefore never to be trusted, no matter how much he loved me.
A YOUNG B-BOY walks by carrying an oversized boombox. Hero does a double-take.
YOUNG B-BOYWarriors come out and play-ee-yay!
HEROYou talkin' to me?
+ + +
Happy 2009, friends. May it be overgrown w/ great things.
Rome and Natalie and I are writing a movie about monsters, and @ th end of January we are heading down to Punta Cana to film it. On th one hand, this is how I always wanted life to be: creative and collaborative, growing from a feeling of closeness between one mind and another. On th other hand, I am coughing my throat inside out and cannot stop myself from making a big private show of my personal suffering: a monologue about how nobody likes me when I am weak, about how th only civilized way to share suffering is to make it a joke. It's just a cough and a case of th chills, but I am getting th bleakest mileage out of it.
In one scene in our movie, our HERO, a man in his early to mid 20s w/ a swimmerly physique and a lazy confident stride, navigates a crowded boardwalk and interrogates himself about climate change, in voiceover.
HEROLet's talk about th weather, since it's th first thing we have in common. Dominican weather is hot and sticky year round, which makes it easier for me to pretend every day is Christmas. Every day is th same day, w/ occasional hurricanes between June and November. My father told me, "Don't believe in movies. We are not born in spring, and we do not die in winter. Those are things white men do." Now I am old enough to see that he was right, that we live and die by heat, but I am not sure of his point. Are we meant to get used to it, th way we get used to hard work? Might it not be more respectable to pursue relentlessly th cool and th shade? Building an air-conditioned world inside a tropical one is hard work in its own right, as my father should well know. He likes to joke, "If you are a rich man, you can choose yr own weather."
HERO stops @ a kiosk owned by an INNOVATIVE LADY and orders a fish sandwich, except th "bread" in this "sandwich" is not bread @ all, but two baked plantain slices. She hands him th "sandwich", which looks strangely delicious.
INNOVATIVE LADYI invented this. Breadless sandwich. Don't look so shocked.
HEROI'm not shocked. I ordered th same thing yesterday. It's very good.
INNOVATIVE LADYOh. I must have mistaken today for yesterday.
HERO
(chewing)Well, it's shockingly tasty. Maybe that is what you saw in my face.
INNOVATIVE LADYI don't mind if you are shocked, sir. Men often look that way when they are losing their virginity.
HERO
(after a confused pause)Listen, it's possible I have mistaken yesterday for today, and this is my first time. It's really quite good.
INNOVATIVE LADYThank you. I invented it myself.
Hero finishes "sandwich", keeps on walking.
HEROThat "sandwich" girl is bats. She's got me all turned around. Is today Wednesday or Thursday? What exactly was in that "sandwich"? Did I remember to turn th oven off? Today is Christmas 1985: I am 1 year old, and my mother has given me a boombox w/ dual cassette decks. That can't be right. I am 12 years old, and I requested that boombox, and now I can dub my favourite songs from one cassette to another. I'll put "I Would Die 4 U" next to "Everything She Wants" and "Goonies R Good Enough". Today is New Year's Eve on th cusp of 2014, and I am th world's best-known Dominican, more famous than Manny Ramírez and Fabolous; but everybody is too busy keeping themselves cool to notice me. Global warming is real, dummy. I never turned th oven on in th first place because I do not know how to cook. I am perhaps th world's most famous 12-year-old in 2014. I am 12 years old in 1959, and my best friends and I have found th dead body of a missing boy. Now what do we do? I'm 12 in 1996, and a scary monster who looks like no girl I have ever seen before is pinning me to th grass. She's hurting my arm and I think she is about to bite my face. It's so hot out here, whenever we are. I do know how to cook. I am cooking.
Hero passes out.
When he wakes up, he is face-down on th beach. He flips himself onto his back and gazes cloudward.
HERO (CONT'D)Keeping oneself adequately hydrated is serious business in tropical climates, remember. Heat is a demon that will possess you if you are careless. It is funny how certain sensations will connect a man directly back to his childhood; a fever, for instance, is an especially strong conduit between childhood and adulthood. What man will not find in himself a yearning for a bowl of hot soup brought to his bed on a tray, a cool wet towel across his forehead, and th concerned parental hand resting for a moment, diagnostically, against his cheek: "Oohh, you are a bit warm, aren't you?" I'm getting older, but these sorts of feelings reach across time and remind me of how much has not changed. Heat now and heat 20 years ago are remarkably consistent. And what else? Loneliness? Does it not also leap decades w/o losing its original vigor? I'm reminded of th curious case of Frédéric Bourdin, th self-dubbed "Chameleon from Nantes", who throughout his 20s and early 30s serially impersonated orphaned teenagers in order to get himself admitted to orphanages, youth shelters, secondary schools, and foster homes. His aim appears to have been neither sexual nor monetary, but only to collect th attention, care, and affection that had gone missing in his literal childhood. Bourdin's later cons required him to wear a baseball cap @ all times to conceal his rapidly-receding hairline. It no longer surprises me what people will do to get loved, what they will believe for love, and forgive for love.
Hero gets up, continues walking, buys bottle of water, drinks it all in one chug.
HERO (CONT'D)There are a couple more crazy impulses implicit in Bourdin's crimes. One is to tell stories. One is to win games. Love-starved or not, you cannot be a balding 30-year-old masquerading as an abused, orphaned 15-year-old w/o in some way loving th lie itself. My father told me, "There are storytellers, and there are story carriers. Baseball players are story carriers. For them th script is written. It is only a matter of deciding who is doing th fucking, and who is getting fucked." My father loves baseball and believes that men who play games are far more trustworthy than men who invent games. "There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head-to-head combat," said America's greatest footballer. To me, American football looks like homosexual bodybuilders furiously rubbing on one another. But my father always did say that I liked to invent games and was therefore never to be trusted, no matter how much he loved me.
A YOUNG B-BOY walks by carrying an oversized boombox. Hero does a double-take.
YOUNG B-BOYWarriors come out and play-ee-yay!
HEROYou talkin' to me?
+ + +
Happy 2009, friends. May it be overgrown w/ great things.