age, escape, reprieve

Chervelle is the five, six or seven year-old granddaughter of my landlord. (i've always been useless with people's ages. i could never figure out the codified nuances of years in human faces, they're all just 'people' no matter how much more honestly so children can be, and no one ever seems to be my age.) every morning she rails noisily:

'I don' want! I don' wanna go to school!'

i know exactly how she feels.

we never talk. the precedents of culture have me hermetically sealed in myself. but every morning as i'm getting myself ready for work, i hear her, and when i step out of my room watch her face contort, particularly around the corners of her mouth, and i wish i could say something.

it feels like my one true connection to this place, that silent commiseration. i know how you feel, i could say. but how disingenuous is that?

and anyway, it doesn't always get any better for everybody, does it?

still, as we step out of the elevator and part ways, she gives me a lopsided smile and waves the way children do, gently says 'Bye!' in the kind of voice only little kids have, and i feel a little better.

*

last night, i missed out catching AI. it's only the second ep i've missed since it got its hooks into me when i arrived in Spore City. the previous night, i was out with a friend who just flew in from home, so i missed that ep as well.

last night i had a different reason: i went out to see 300.

brilliant movie. the most entertaining and witty testosterone banter i've heard in a while. i laughed out loud at every well-placed repartee, both verbal and physical.

utterly sturm-und-drang even in its most quiet moments, 300 is a Greek melodrama all the way (all the old politicians yelling 'Traitor! Traitor!' like college kids at a toga party), such that at times, the sentiment and idealism of it i found a bit distracting and heavy-handed; but, fortunately, never quite out of place. it's a Greek melodrama, after all.

the no nonsense (Spartan) approach to the resolution of plot dilemmas (Gorgo's scene with the council is my favorite one in the entire film) sets a nice balance to the otherwise almost Michael-Bay-oid portrayal of nobility in war.

but i must be getting old. as exhilarated as i was by the film, not thirty minutes after i was surprised to find i was not thinking about it; instead i realized i could have lived without seeing it.

though without regret, i found myself wondering what else i could have done with my time.

(but that's just me. don't let that stop you; this film is utterly brilliant and surreal, serious and yet not without a hefty serving of cheek, smartly visceral in just about any sense you can think of to define the phrase.)

*

I was surrounded by a language

In which I could say only 'Hello'

And 'Thank you very much'

But you spoke so I could understand

Ani DiFranco, Hypnotized

how could i have said it any better?

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