GOD SAID, "HA!"

Tuesday, May 26, 1998

Jon Singer came downstairs today (his team recently moved to my building. Microsoft moves teams randomly, all the time!) and returned the money I had lent him before his aborted attempt to see Nosferatu on Sunday. A truly classic Jon Singer moment: he gave me dried bananas to taste. They were really kippered bananas, dried over a wood fire, so they tasted sweet and smoky at once. They'd be great in a a fruit salsa!

I was working steadily away this afternoon. I reached up to grab a different CD to listen to, and Wham! the whole stack rained down on my head and arms. I think I let out quite a yelp! Nate, a bay-mate, very kindly walked over and helped me pick up all the CDs and put them away. There were actually parallel welts on my right forearm, where the edges had scored my skin.

This was my first day driving straight from work to the film festival. Friday I had parked by my house and walked down the hill; today I drove to the fancy section of Capitol Hill, where the Bullit property is or used to be. From there I walked four blocks or so to the Harvard Exit Theater. I grabbed my seat next to A---, and pulled out the hummus sandwich I had cleverly bought at the cafeteria today.

God Said, "Ha!"
I had heard earlier versions of this one-woman show by Julia Sweeny on the radio, on This American Life. It's just as good when you can see her. I found it funnier in some ways, and less tear-inducing, perhaps because we see her face. (I was primary caregiver for my parents in the last year and a half of their lives, so material about people dying doesn't have far to go to move me.) I really enjoyed this! Sweeny talks about her brother getting cancer, her parents moving in with her, and getting cancer herself!

Between the movies tonight, I chatted with my old friend Jeff Shannon, and got caught up with Kevin Fansler, another Microsoft person with a full-series pass, and Jon Newman. I'd been wondering where he was, since I hadn't seen him at all this past weekend! Turns out he was away at a family reunion. Imagine! What fine family spirit he has, to take time away during the festival to get together with relatives.

Girl With Hyacinths
A Swedish film from 1950. A young woman commits suicide, and her neighbor wants to know why. The neighbor and his wife were the most enjoyable part of the movie for me. They had a great relationship, teasing and sexy, like Nick and Nora Charles. I don't know if I'd call it a masterpiece, as the program book does, but it's definitely worth seeing.

See the Sea
French director François Ozon is called audacious. I don't recommend this piece at all! Ugh! A woman and baby are alone at their vacation home. She allows a young woman to camp on their lawn, then the stranger gets more involved with their lives. Shock ending. I was more upset by the mother leaving the baby alone in the tub, or on the beach! Seen with a short from the same director, "A Summer Dress," which was entirely charming and that I liked very much.