News From the Far End of Society
Continuing my "New York Internet Tour" I am writing you from the lovely climate controlled atmosphere of the City University Graduate Center's library. Sorry, internet moochers, you need a graduate student to get in. Luckily, I live with one. So let the mooching continue!
My non office time is nearing an end. I have work on Friday and then I start a 3 week stint on Wednesday. I feel like suddenly all the free time I had stretched before me has evaporated. I am racing to my list that I started making months ago about all the things I wanted to experience while not in an office, and I have done NARY A ONE. Instead, I've been listening to Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon on tape, drawing women for my great gals calendar (like arty Miranda July pictured above), baking gingerbread, eating like crap, and taking breaks to watch Harold & Maude. I am newly obsessed with this movie. I liked it before, but recently I've had an inkling to take an afternoon break, drink sweet milky tea and watch this movie ALMOST DAILY.
I have been known to watch movies I love a number of times, but I haven't had the DAILY URGE to watch the same movie or even parts of it. There's a couple of reasons why this movie has been DOING IT for me as of late. One is that it was filmed in and around my hometown of Palo Alto in 1970, so it has the light and surroundings of my childhood that are very comforting. Another reason is the soundtrack is just SO KICK ASS. Cat Stevens! Why oh why don't I own any Cat Stevens? The third reason is Ruth Gordon, known to the world in this movie, as Maude. Her character is so inspiring to me, so full of life, so philisophically PITCH PERFECT that I often rush through the other scenes, just so I can hear her musings on life. I can remember the first time I saw this movie just a few years ago. I was depressed and in a HORRIBLE MOOD. I was at my folks' and we put it in and I literally thought, "I wonder why everybody always says this movie is SO GREAT." By the time Maude declares that she would like to comeback as a sunflower, and explains to Harold her belief that "most of the world's sorrow" stems from the individual being treated as if they aren't an individual, but a mass of identicals, I was BAWLING.
Anyway, I managed to pull myself from the urge of watching it today, to make my way to midtown and here I am. There a number of things that I need to get done. One of them, being my resume. I got an inquiry for a part-time job with benefits. I can't tell you much about it yet, only that I SO WANT TO GET IT! SO BAD. It's a good job and it will pay my basics, so that I can do art four days a week--hallelujah! Hallelujah! Can I get an AMEN?? AMEN! So wish me well. It might just mean that I get internet at home, so that I can quit this mooching and be a full fledged member of society. Either that, or it will give me a place to go so I don't watch the same movie over and over again.
posted by Summer Pierre at
1:35 PM
3 Comments:
Summer, I love that movie as well. A friend rented it for me when I was depressed and it helped. I had forgotten about that film. Thanks, for reminding me. I am sending good wishes to you for the job. I find that if helps me stay positive and I have had good results when I visualize what I want twice a day. I do it in the morning to set the tone and intention for the day and then again at night...so that my subconscious mind works on it at night.
I would love to buy a calendar. When will they be available? Please let me know.
Best,
Chalaundrai
I first saw Harold and Maude when it came out - like what was that, 1973 or something. My parents had to drive us to the movie theater. We loved it. I thinkwe were in 7th grade or something. We then went and saw it over the next weeks 12x, as in paying for it back beofre movie rentals. We too couldn't get enough of it. The one song 'if you want to sing out, sing out,...' made a big effect on me. So it is so fun to see it grabbed you somehow like that,even now.
I know, I love that movie, for pretty much the same reasons. It makes me feel four years old again, looking at the old Dumbarton Bridge, with the foam flying over the road, gazing at the wooden sculptures in the marshes of the bay. I always take out-of-towners to the ruins of the old bathhouse, where Maude falls through the concrete hole. And I can't drive by the veteran's cemetary without thinking of Cat Stevens' "Trouble." So funny and sad.
Oh, Hi Summer. Just lurking.
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