Emily, Lived By:

This was an insufferably long & mundane day.  Please excuse me if this post drips occasionally with venom.

Things began at 11 am when I left the house to get the week’s required supplies.  What did I need?  Three specified books of Spanish poetry, a DVD player, fruit, oatmeal, & five criterion collection DVDs.  But I couldn’t eat breakfast until any of this was done.

I got a library card, finally (remember my mishaps Week 1?) & checked out the three required books.  I checked to see if they had any of the DVDs but they only had one copy of each, all out.

As my pocketbook resigned itself to the idea of purchasing them, I went to Futureshop (carrying my heavy purse on my left shoulder to even my posture out, thanks Week 5!).  They did not have a single one.  I went to Chapters.  None.  One might be available on special order.  By now I was getting very irritated.  Some people seem to think that expensive DVDs of obscure foreign films just materialize instantly whenever you need them.  This is not the case, especially not on the west coast of Canada, which has neither Netflix nor interesting art of any kind.

It's foreign to me, too.

I went to a used DVD store & showed them the list.  “Are these French?”  The guy led me to the World Music CDs.  “They’re movies.” I said.

That certainly narrowed it down.  They had a shelf of fewer than 100 foreign films, including such timeless classics as The Break Up, starring Jennifer Aniston.  Most of the films were Japanese.  No dice.

Well, I don’t have enough impotent rage in my life anyway.

I started walking toward Burrard & 4th, about two miles away, where the guy at Chapters had told me there might or might not be a building with a silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock on the side of it.  This building might or might not have one of the movies I needed for the week.

“Is it walking distance?” I’d asked him.

“I don’t know what’s it’s called.”

Uh.

Earlier in the day, I’d taken these directions with a grain of salt, but this mysterious Alfred Hitchcock building seemed to be my only recourse.  I trudged along.  The bottoms of my feet, by the way, are now covered in blisters.  I spent all last week in a wheelchair, remember?

Also, my purse was full of heavy library books.

Fortunately, on the way I spotted a little hole-in-the-wall video store.  The guy behind the counter helped me search all the movies in their database. They only had Exterminating Angels.  Well, I thought the film was called Exterminating Angel, but presumed it was a typo.  This was in their computer as a foreign film, after all.  & it was my movie for the day. Full of relief, I rented it– or tried.  My credit card was declined.  What?  Has someone stolen my identity?  I’ll sort that out tomorrow.

The man let me borrow it anyway, without a deposit.  Because I look like an honest girl.  Lucky for him, I am one.  I could’ve run off with Exterminating Angels & never returned!

Earlier, I had refrained from buying a DVD player because, I thought bitterly to myself, there was no point in buying one if I didn’t have any DVDs.  But now I did.  I went to Futureshop & bought the cheapest one.  Then, stopped at a grocery store & bought oatmeal & frozen blueberries.  Are you on the edge of your seat or what?

I arrived home & heaved a sigh of disgusted relief.  The whole excursion had taken me over three hours & it was past 2:00.   Also, I am always in a terrible mood when I can’t have my juice.

I angrily 1. cooked my oatmeal the old-fashioned way, stirred in some 2. blueberries & 3. sweetened with honey. Ate it pacing around the living room.  Then attempted to set up the DVD player.  It works– the TV doesn’t.  Nearly smashed it (eerily foreshadowing the film that was to come!)

Then TD called to tell me he had just eaten a pint of ice cream.  It soothed my nerves a little to know that there are still people out there living lives of lazy indolence.  I’m not being sarcastic.  It really did.

I had to watch the movie after breakfast.  Had no way of watching it.  What was I to do?  I resolved to buy a new computer.  I’ve been meaning to ask for one for Christmas, but this was an emergency.  Went to the Apple Store but realized I just can’t afford it.

Called Braden.  He saved my life.  Or rather, he saved Fernando’s.  He was having lunch, but he’d lend me his computer when he got back!

I went home & poured myself some 4. wine. It was that or water, people.  I also found many of the required films online.  They’re not DVDs, but they’ll have to do.  I also got some good tips on other video stores from my Twitter pals & will seek out some other films on my day off.

Decompressed until around 4:00 when Braden arrived to save the day.

We all worship him around here.

Braden decided to stick around for some wine & a movie.

Friends, Exterminating Angels is not a Bunuel film.  But the fundamentalist Christian in me reared its head & told me there was a reason for everything.  Thanks, Week 3.  We 5. watched it anyway.

The plot is very tragic.  Set in (approximately) the present day, it’s about a middle-aged director, Francois, who has a brilliant & groundbreaking vision for a film. Young women masturbating on camera!  Not pornography– an exploration of taboo. Why did nobody invent this idea before?  It’s great!

Anyway, everything goes wrong, as it always does when well-meaning older gentlemen are victimized by young women.

The film opens with Francois’s dead grandmother appearing to him in the night.  Then, two dark angels also appear (20-something brunettes clad in low-budget mismatched black tank-tops)—they’re invisible to him.  “Be careful with him!” says Grandmere – “He’s only a child.”

I guess you’re always a baby to your grandma.

Next, Francois is videotaping a young actress for a screen test in which she has involuntarily started masturbating for the camera.  It’s just something about him! He makes her feel so safe.  He wears a bemused, world-weary expression & a long untucked button-down shirt—as he will every time we see him.

The auditioning actress confides that she just experienced her first ever orgasm. Though Francois chooses to go with “a slightly better actress” for the role, the seeds of an idea begin to form!  At the prompting of the dark angels (they prompt his subconscious self, anyway), he begins auditioning women for his innovative film on “taboo.”

The auditions involve Francois choreographing (though certainly not filming– these are only auditions, after all) mutual masturbation in fancy restaurants, hotel room threesomes, & a lot public lesbian fondling– etc.  Our director is strictly an observer, of course.  This is all in the name of art.

The girls are all quite young & pretty & one of them is periodically possessed by the devil.

All WHAT? Bella is scandalized.

Poor beleaguered man!  These young women inevitably fall in love with him left right & center.  He doesn’t understand it! He tucks them into bed after they suffer schizophrenic episodes, kisses their foreheads after videotaping their threesomes, all while maintaining a very professional directorial distance– he’s just like a father to them, as he emphasizes more than once.

“Be careful!” His wife warns him.  These lovelorn girls are dangerous & will take advantage of him.

Old women are so wise.

After Francois allows the producer to fire the two main actresses on the first day of shooting (Charlotte, possessed by the devil, destroys the set) the film is made & it’s a big success!  But, as if our poor Francois hasn’t been victimized enough, one of the girls goes to the “gutter papers” with a totally unfounded accusation of sexual harassment.  The exact nature of her claim is not specified in the film.  Anyway, this libelous act gets Francois sent to prison for a year!  Tabloids have so much power these days.

When he returns his wife has left him.  Quel dommage!

"Let's go out & bop until we drop"

Then, a gang of masked intruders break into his apartment & tenderize him with a baseball bat.  Do we spot the devil-possessed young lady behind one of the masks?  Is there no end to this poor man’s victimization?

The film ends with our long-suffering director being wheeled onto set in a wheelchair.  Grandmother appears again.  “Francois?  Francois!”  But he doesn’t respond.

Roll credits.

Are you surprised to learn that it’s semi-autobiographical?  We googled & the director  (slash writer, of course) was recently imprisoned for a year for sexually harassing two actresses.  Likely their charges were even more baseless than the ones our good Francois faced!

Anyway, it was a lol & a half, maybe I should get the director to do a week for me!  I promise I won’t send him to prison.

One of my favorite things about the film, aside from the nudity, of course, was that Francois carried his camera around in a plastic grocery bag.  Also, after the first threesome, one of the women turned to the other & said “Let’s go out & bop until we drop!”

Though it’s not worth watching all the tedious dialogue & clumsy attempts at symbolism just for a few dimly lit scenes of soft-core lesbian pornography, I believe this film would make an excellent drinking game.  I will write one for it some day, when I’m not so busy.

(Sidenote: as soon as the movie started, Braden exclaimed, “Ptolemy will like this!”)

The moral of the story?  The symbolic meaning behind this?  What have I taken & learned? From my misadventures? From Francois’s?  Sloppy art has dire consequences.  Think about it.

I was supposed to 6. Read the booklet that came with the DVD immediately after.  There was no such booklet.  There will never be one.  I will likely go to my grave without having read this informative booklet.  I firmly hold that this isn’t my failure. It won’t go in the failure book.

Then I 7. Went for a walk. Fernando generously told me “You have 45 minutes.”  Well, you know me, I’m an overachiever.  I got the walk to the liquor store out of the way in around 10.

Then I 8. Sat in a coffee shop & wrote about what I’d just seen.  Sitting in a coffee shop isn’t much fun when you’re not allowed carbohydrates or any beverages besides water. I bought some Perrier & wrote some of the above.  Once this entry goes up, I’ve 9. Posted it.

Oh good.  It was finally time for 10. Lunch.  8 o’clock, after all.  I got some ginger beef from a Chinese restaurant, since I’m not allowed carbohydrates.  I wonder, does Fernando know what a carbohydrate is?  I 11. Took my time & enjoyed the queasy sensation of eating a meal consisting entirely of a handful of greasy meat & water glass of red wine.

Meanwhile, I 11. Flipped through the complete poems of Cesar Vallejo.  They were a little too Whitmanesque & life-affirming for me at that point, though I certainly enjoyed one or two of the quieter ones.  I also 12. Learned something about the author in that time.  I looked in the book jacket. He’s from Peru.

9:15, my trusty (canine) companion & I headed out for 13. A 45 minute walk.  We witnessed many stages of canoodling on the grass, from outright fornication to tender proposals of marriage.  Sure, I felt a few pangs of loneliness, but as you know I’m married to my art.  As I walked, I 14. Thought about what I’d read. Conclusion? Men & women are, like, different in lots of ways.

Once home, I was supposed to 15. Write for an hour, with the day’s texts acting as a trigger for something. Well, here you see the result of that hour– & the following half hour too.  Fernando probably wanted me to write poetry or something, but– well– I 16. Just let it happen.

Now I just have to 17. Eat dinner — a carbless one.  Well, there’s some cut-rate salmon burning a hole in my fridge.  Some wilting dill too.  I’m sure it will be delicious.

Then, after 18. An hour without any electronic devices, I will 19. Go to bed for eight hours. I’m going to aim for a bedtime of 2:00am, as I need to 20. Keep my bedtime consistent throughout the week.  The project requires that I keep late hours & I don’t want to get stuck partway through a blog entry at 12:30am or something like that.

Prognosis? Wino.

Tomorrow you should witness a return to our standard inspirational fare.  & soon I’ll figure a way to make this interesting.