lost & found

my review, which will probably appear under some hideous title in the phoenix on thursday of "Lost in Translation":

The bourgeoning subculture of fan fiction pairs two romantically-unaffiliated fictional characters and creates for them a story of their own. The internet overflows with fan fiction about Harry&Hermione from Harry Potter, Xena&Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess, and various Star Trek captains with each other.

Whether consciously or not, what Sofia Coppola has created in her new film Lost in Translation is a piece of fan fiction that ingeniously pairs Bill Murray�s character, Herman Blume, from Rushmore, with Scarlet Johansson�s character, Rebecca, from Ghost World.

Devising a fantastical erotic scenario for those two characters would be untrue to both. Instead Coppola simply places them in the same swanky Tokyo hotel. Their mutual sense of alienation, coupled with insomnia, is enough to guarantee that Murray and Johansson will meet and recognize the other as a kindred spirit.

Murray�s character, an aging movie star, is in Japan to earn $2 million shooting whiskey commercials. Johansson�s, a 22 year old Yale grad, is in Japan accompanying her husband, a photographer, who is shooting movie stars.

Both spend their copious unstructured time wandering around the hotel or the city alone � and then, once they meet, together. It is in this aspect of the film particularly that Coppola reveals herself as a skillful director. Whether Johansson is examining Tokyo�s video arcades and high tech billboards, or temples and a flower-arranging class, Coppola herself maintains the same calm pace.

The effect produces more than a consistency of tone. Coppola captures vividly what is like not to be in Tokyo, but to be an American tourist in Tokyo. To view the city at arm�s length, fascinated by the details and equally unwilling to attempt to delve beneath the surface.

Neither Murray nor Johansson speaks Japanese. Much of the film�s humor derives from simple yet effective sight gags (Murray in a packed elevator of Japanese business men, standing a head taller than the rest of them) and typical cultural miscommunications. Without being offensive, the film manages to be surprisingly funny as well as, eventually, touching.

The relationship that develops between Murray and Johansson is what allows both to transcend the limits of their original Rushmore/ Ghost World characters. That relationship feels far more believable and, at the same time, more complex and unique, than what Hollywood usually comes up with.

Naturally, since they are Man and Woman, and even more so because as individuals they are so similar, sexual tension creeps into the story. At no point does it disappear, but, refreshingly, at no point does it take over. It becomes just another layer of their many-layered friendship.

Bill Murray deserves special praise for elevating wry, truly funny disaffection to an art form. If you couldn�t tell from Groundhog Day or if you thought Rushmore was a fluke, his performance here should erase all reasonable doubt: the man has talent.

Coppola�s previous film, The Virgin Suicides, while generally well-regarded, was also self-indulgent and slow. At moments, Lost in Translation feels like it could use some tough love editing. But as a whole it succeeds where Virgin Suicides failed, managing to be a thought-provoking, visually remarkable mood piece. The risks she takes here, such as prioritizing character over plot, pay off: they establish her as an artist as well as one of the most successful practitioners of fan fiction to date.

seen

EXT - UPENN SEPTA STATION - DAY

Two college seniors sit side by side on a red bench waiting for a train. SD, tall and lanky, carries one bag. ES, shorter and not-so-lanky, carries three. both look shaken.

ES
well.

SD
yeah. that ... was pretty awful.

ES
i think the worst part was when he made the class hate you for actually having done the assignment.

SD
or how 'bout when he made fun of you for being vegetarian?

ES
do you want a drink?

SD
do you have one?

from one bag, Es withdraws a statuesque bottle of WHITE CHOCOLATE GODIVA LIQUEUR. from another bag she withdraws TWO PLASTIC SHOTGLASSES.

ES
do you see any cops?

SD
the conductor ...

Es and S.D. hang their heads as the CONDUCTOR passes by, bellowing for a station stop. once she's gone, Es pours out two shots.

ES
to the most disappointing class ever.

SD
hear hear.

both drink.

ES
i think i'm going to need another.

S.D. extends his empty cup. Es pours liberally.

now here's where it gets fun! reader, choose your ending:
a) out of nowhere a police officer appears. he reads Es and S.D. the riot act on having open bottles of alcohol in public. fortunately he's convinced by their chagrin and apologies and lets them off with a warning -- but not before Es and S.D. miss their train and have to covertly drink more while waiting for the next

b) out of nowhere the despised professor appears, begging their pardon for having wasted their time over 4 weeks worth of classes, for pretending to be funny, for the racist cosby joke, for making Es say to the entire class of UPenn students, "i didn't date in high skool," & for insulting the semi-colon. unswayed by the apologies, Es hits him upside the head with the bottle of WHITE CHOCOLATE GODIVA LIQUEUR.

c) out of nowhere jesus appears. be patient, jesus counsels. bide your time. bite your tongues. believe me, in the next world, we have a special place for people who pretend to be funny, and a corner roped off for those who make racist cosby jokes.

d) none of the above. but the godiva was damn good.

mi y'hiyeh veh mi ya'mut

coming home for rosh hashanah, the new year, means, primarily, the party my mother throws the afternoon of the first day. (the holiday lasts two.) essentially the same people come and feast on essentially the same menu. my friends grab plates of food and adjourn upstairs to eat on my bed and catch each other up on what's happened in the month since we've seen each other.

this year neither of my brothers came home to host with me, and sheba wasn't underfoot shnoring bits of turkey or meat. but as usual, people drank and had a merry time and stayed all afternoon, cornering me whenever i ventured downstairs to tell me i looked lovely and have i started college yet, or have i finished, or what am i doing next.

the party passed more quickly than it often has. i'm delaying the going back to college, even though i haven't been sleeping well in my old bed and even though my friends are heading back on schedule. surely it's my duty to hang around until the last of the poached salmon is et.

be published

the washington post is publishing 600-800 word opinion pieces by undergraduates during the month of september. guidlines can be found here. send send send! think how depressing twill be if the results are dominated by young conservatives.

youth is a passing thing

I'm feeling bizarrely sad. The basement of McCabe isn't helping matters. Neither is the flourescent light or the chai I bought to get the taste of onions out of my mouth after 3 pieces of Belgian chocolate didn't do the trick. Even so I'm reluctant to return to my room, having ventured out for the purpose of doing homework (in which purpose I've been thwarted by the library gods) because i don't want to not-find ben there. i know in my head i'll not-find ben there; i'll find sex and the city: season 4, which will be a comfort, but not a ben-sized comfort.


at least my class today was good. last week i chose to crawl under the table and shoot myself rather than listen to the prof continue to ramble on about the cosby show, attractive v. unattractive female movie stars, cave paintings, and the like. it's supposed to be a screenwriting workshop for god's sake. he was treating it like a 3-hour marathon comedy special. even chris rock doesn't get 3 hours.

today was better. today at least we discussed movies. or, well, he talked for the vast majority of the time. maybe my standards have fallen precipitously. but he talked about the movies we were supposed to have seen; that's something. he said intelligent albeit uncited things, things he could have stolen from any number of people -- still, worthwhile, interesting things. it's nearly impossible to copywrite ideas anyway.

incidentally the gender genie determined from the above entry that i'm female -- barely. there was a 3 point difference in my scores. my use of "the"s nearly pushed me to the other side: apparently "the" is a typical masculine word. "but" is a typically feminine one.

maybe it's best to simply marvel at the genie and not bother trying to understand the underlying logical principles. maybe that's a typical feminine response. but!

meat tenderizer

a bee stung me! in sharples, our dining hall, which looks like a ski lodge, is never called a cafeteria, and isn't usually a WWI battlefield where killer bees lurk in trenches waiting to jump out and attack.

a bee! stung me! i thought that only happened to whiny children, or people misguided enough to wear yellow. and honestly, it hurts. now i understand why people are afraid of those damned creatures. the one that got me didn't fall down and die, like they're supposed to; he merely continued on his merry masochistic way.

my hand swelled up and a nurse sprinkled meat tenderizer on like it was fairy dust, then sealed the deal by handing me a medicine bottle in a plastic baggie. that's ice, she said helpfully. just hold it with your hand.
i walked out of the medical building and back to my room, tenderized and clutching ice in the form of a bottle of pills, and i heard a girl behind me giggle to a boy, "what, did she get stung by a bee or something?"

also, i got my fortune told in philly yesterday, but more about that later.

ben takes good pictures

there are a bunch of me but these are the 3 i like:

and and

here's one of my illustrious father:

course, you could just investigate the lot. do it fast if you're on the eastern seaboard, before isabel gets you.

welcome to the monkey house

gephardt-dean

gephardt? dean?

clark??

trade-offs

i have long flowy curtains in my room now (located mostly around the window, although one, longer than the other, trails on the floor). i am also afraid of cockroaches. brigid found one in her room yesterday and kindly stopped to tell me about it before she went to bed. how she could have gone to bed, without even the reassuring presence of flowy curtains, i don't understand; it was hard enough for me in my situation.

also, i have a carpet. for some reason when i arrived at my lovely room in one of the nicest buildings on campus, i never thought to look down. turns out i live on linoleum. luckily shorey had a spare rug and she was willing to walk it with me all the way from her 15-minutes-away dorm. unluckily it smells rather rank. presently it's sitting out in the hallway until it learns to behave itself and smell like a civilized carpet.

shorey also hung the curtains. or is it hanged? it is useful to have useful friends.

put yourself in my shoes

imagine: you're too tired to write a substantial entry. dispiriting days do that to you. also going to sleep at 3:30 for no better reason than because you've watched too many scary movies recently and are frightened to turn off the lights and be alone.

waking up and rushing off, disoriented, to tennis, only to swing vainly at every ball -- in one case, even attempt to serve and manage to thwack yourself in the back with the ball -- in another case, snapping unadvisably at the chill tennis instructor whose only offense was to ask you AGAIN to define for the class what a continental grip is -- should teach you that this, as a plan, is flawed.

a whole day spent in philly with nothing to show for it. 3 hour long penn class merely pissed you off and the registration gaffe afterwards exacerbated it, as did having to tred carefully in your tractionless platform sandals so as not to fall in the sudden soddenness of the afternoon. thank god for your friend s. kelly who procured falafel and SATC with you to calm you down and walked you to the train.

actually you're fine. you had a lovely weekend with your boy and his family. your hair withstood the humidity today remarkably well. so what if you don't have a movie review this week? go to sleep; everything will be better tomorrow.

it's about purity

driving up to new york on september 11th felt distinctly eerie. none of my fellow passengers seemed unduly stressed out. a few of them wore "i [heart] usa" buttons or t-shirts with flags, but quite possibly no more than normal in this day and age.

to avoid traffic, or something, we approached ny city via jersey city, which was a jumble of ethnicities you never see on television. women in saris, muslim men, a barefoot barelegged black baby running in circles while a couple watched from a porch, a few quickwalking youngish white folks but for the most part skin color ran the gamut from peanut butter to coca-cola.

stores boasted, Cheap _______ ! [nails, fish, shoes], some strictly in arabic.

i have to admit i held my breath while we crossed the bridge. i have to admit i thought, in the words of my predecessor, If i die, i die. i even may have thought it in hebrew, for extra kicks.

of course, nothing happened. i was glad to be getting off campus though. i wanted no part of any remembrance of the day, not leftist not rightist. for me it was enough to spend the day in class (normal) and travelling to new york (uneventful) and urge the arrival of september 12 as quickly as possible.

speaking of 12, here's my review of thirteen. por favor, ignore the shittyass titling, courtesy of my editor who hates me.

terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

and you know i'm never hyperbolic. yesterday just bit. i tried to make things better by being pretty: i walked around all day in a bright pink skirt with striped pink'n'purple knee socks and barely any black, by my standards, just a shirt and boots to balance it out. it didn't work. everything just went wrong yesterday, in minor but increasingly irritating ways until i finally had a mini breakdown, read 5 chapters of hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, and conked out.

today, i was determined, should be better. and indeed it has been! it's been gorgeous outside. i feel pretty enough in my spiffy new (black) pants and new (black) shirt that says "hottie" in letters that look like they were spraypainted. i've eaten chocolate coconut cake, watched dressed to kill, read a whole wonderful book of dykes to watch out for, played tennis, watched the simpsons, seinfeld, and west wing, and am in the process of ordering pizza and watching some like it hot. i've made plans to visit my boyfriend tomorrow, with whom i had this exchange:

him: they're teddy bear feminists.
me: what the hell are teddy bear feminists?
him: feminists who give teddy bears to people.

this, need i say, is the life.

this is why i keep him around

what a perfect way to relax after a helter-skelter day: to the streamed sounds of wfuv courtesy of m'ben. 8 - 12 pm on sundays this station plays the hard-to-classify music i like so much. gershwin-y, cole-porterish, 20s-30s music to which you can just see swishy skirts travelling in circles around a dance floor with three piece suits ...

after exercising my legal right -- hell, virtual obligation -- as a 21 year old to drink the past two nights, i'm taking it easy now. of course i did a lot of co|motion stuff this afternoon/evening before i allowed myself to take it easy. and of course the night where a group of us got drunk on pina coladas and vanilla vodka and played charades was in and of itself easier than the night where a small group of us saw depressing though quality art filmage, then brooded over cocktails.

in general i've felt older recently. an interesting feeling, and one that is probably not unconnected to being a senior. while i like the frosh i've met, it's not watching them run around that makes me feel like a senior, exactly. it's something else that i'm trying to put my finger on, something related to the feeling of unshakable familiarity & comfort -- even, perhaps, the beginning of a sense that i could be (soon) ready to move on. (not now, and not too soon, but, perhaps, soon.)

at last!

well hi there, blogger. nice to see you too. yes, it's been a while, hasn't it. where have you been hiding.

since i've just emptied my mind at the lj i have little left for blogger, even though out of love and loyalty of course i tried blogger first.

i did, at elizabeth's mom's behest, see a chiropractor this week. twice, even. my neck feels almost entirely better, but don't tell friendly dr. boy-band-frontman-on-steroids because he wags his finger at discussing symptom disappearance. the focus of chiropractic care is to make your spine work at 100%. if your symptoms go away, that's merely a fringe benefit.

still: my neck feels better. ben came to visit; surely that helped too. he found it weird to have so recently graudated and returned. i found it comfortingly normal.

also, my first film review of the year, dirty pretty things. yes, the title sucks. i apologize. i'll do better next time. the review did garner me the first compliment i've ever received from my editor.
stay tuned next week for my review of thirteen.

ester incapacitated

ouch. i've done something uncalled for to my neck and now my leftward mobility is curtailed. i can't lift my left arm, even to do my hair. this severely limits my options so it's a damn good thing it's already getting dark.

stefanie, daughter of a chiropractor and very much a true believer, informed me that ice is better than heat; that sleeping on more than one pillow is toxic and sleeping on your stomach is a death wish; and that i need to go get myself Corrected. she and eliz frequent a chiropractor about 15 minutes away by car so they don't see this as a big deal, but i find it a little scary. i mean, it looks like it hurts.

if by tomorrow i still can't turn my head to the left, i'll go with them. but ugh.

the rumors are true...

... parrish, my dorm, is eerily quiet. there's more noise outside my window at the rose garden/roundabout than in the hallway outside my open door. speaking of my door, why aren't people knocking it down? don't tell me this is one of those situations where i'll have to learn to be assertive again. you think i came to college to learn?

currently i'm eating leftover sesame tofu with my fingers, then wiping my fingers on my jeans and using them to type. this bodes well for the future, both in terms of hygiene and the condition of my keyboard. but i have no silverware. i have no roommate either, and no boyfriend (well, at least none within arm's reach). something, people, has got to give.

well, i have a pretty view outside my window, which is taller than i am, and my walls are so tall i can barely even see the ceiling. the ceiling is like a dimly glimpsed horizon. it may well just be a mirage. everything's white, except the furniture (light wood stained) and the floor (linoleum. what? who ordered linoleum? not that i'm complaining, mind you. the other dorms i've lived in on campus had cinderblock walls and floors made out of compacted grade F meat). (still, i could use a rug.)

if you are someone i know, or the sibling of someone i know, you should stop by parrish 246 and get the awkward first "oh hi!" moment out of the way. i swear i'm not intimidating: at the moment, i have sesame sauce dripping down my chin. mmm, sesame ...

one brother gone, one brother going

who is this man
and why does he start each day
by rolling out the white carpet
as though he expects a paint-covered god

what are the blue odorless flowers sprouted
along the carpet, following the banister up six
flights of stairs

why are rooms
changing tones like mood rings

she wouldn't understand
the books spat from shelves, either,
the knickknacks plucked from walls

she could have tried asking
the house, which
in twenty years had never before gone under
the knife, but the anasthesized house
could not have answered

she would have dashed
out the door every day the man
was painting it and crouched, waited for us
on the lawn to coax her back in
to what we'd reassure her was her home
still
the biggest shift to me
is not the bathroom, cornered
and stripped at last
of the paper i've hated for years, or my brothers'
suitcases piled in the hallway like oversized
building blocks the biggest shift
is having to imagine her
confusion, instead of petting it away.

i have a cellphone

i do. i didn't expect or ask for one -- that's always the best way to get something. my older brother's heading off to iowa, where his plan doesn't work. instead of cancelling the plan, the t-mobile lady (not catharine zeta-jones, sadly, but i guess she's at home nursing) convinced him to give the phone to me.

at the phone store the phone guy, who reminded me a little of our foreign study coordinator, and my brother badgered me into getting the best phone available for $50, instead of the $50 one that's less reliable but better looking. so my phone is sweet but ugly. hopefully it will grow on me. please feel free to say helpful things like, "don't worry, the good-looking ones break your heart in the end."

i have this phone for a year. in the best of all possible worlds, adam will return from iowa, and i'll head there, and we'll handoff the plan again. meanwhile, call me. i leave for swarthmore this weekend for my last year. i won't think about that. instead i'll play bowling and check my email on my sexy-ugly phone, for which i now need to think of a name.

no, eliz, you're just a follower

i haven't been in the dc public library in years. i would prefer to put the number at around 10; in fact it's probably closer to 3 since i came here to borrow the LOTR books instead of buy them. since i ended up never bringing them back, the guilt kept me at arm's length til desperation beckoned me in.

actually the reason for the gulf between the time i came 10 years ago and the time i came 3 years ago is also attributable to my library kleptomania. it's terrible, absolutely terrible. the only stealing i've ever done! i don't deserve to be a swattie, or at least to be thought of in the same breath as true, socially-minded leftists who never steal, or only from corporate congloms which deserve it.

since reading nickel and dimed i've become vehemently anti-walmart. fyi.

i find it funny that they even allow me onto the computer without checking my record here. if there's a black list, i'm on it. if there's a ten most wanted list, i might be on that too. oh dear. i wouldn't be here, listening to the inexplicable minnesota accent of the librarian helping a woman in a housedress behind me, if a storm hadn't racked our area, depriving many of power and my house of internet.

at home mostly i've been filling out applications. out of convenience/laziness, i've narrowed down my choices to: stanford, nyu, columbia (film), ucla (film), bu, emerson, and iowa. in the course of this, i've become as dissatisfied with my poetry as i've ever been. it's too late now to burn the lot and start over. maybe when/if i get into some grad skool program. i'll view that as a new chance.

if not, i'll do as ben discreetly suggested. see myself as a recreational poet who writes things for people when they need them.
(at the time, less than pleased with that prospect, i said, "they could just buy a hallmark card!" to which he replied, "there are no hallmark cards for ... pain ...") talk about a niche market.

"itchy, scratchy seek poochie"

my new salon personals profile has reaped me an invitation to be the playmate of a 30-something new jersey couple. i don't know between which lines about dorothy parker or lars van trier these people read "swinger" but i got a kick out of it anyway. at least they can quote the simpsons.

i'm back from the beach. it was beachy-keen, you could say, if you were lobotomized, for example, or a cheery redfaced fella. i came the nearest i've ever come to buying a two-piece. that is to say, i tried one on. it was bright red, the idea being that people would be so dazzled, or blinded, that they wouldn't notice my not-quite-washboard stomach.

the primary drama of the trip occurred last night as we wound our way home from delaware via new jersey and pennsylvania. my mother called my grandmother and discovered that something was wrong with my grandfather. immediately my father shifted from Speed to Fly. immediately my not-quite-sturdy stomach reacted. when we finally made it to our house, merely a stop for my parents on their way to the hospital, they discovered that no one brought the new keys to the new locks on our new door.
ultimately we had to ask a family friend, an ex-priest and present sociology prof at umd, to break into our house for us. you wouldn't necessarily think that an ex-priest or a sociologist could possibly be useful in the real world. but believe me, this one is a lifesaver. this morning he and his wife served us brunch.