ay ay ay

I can't stand it! I love you all so maach!

7/20/08

Gojitmal

Back in like 2000 Zoe recommended this Korean movie to me, "Lies" it was called. I picked it up one night while visiting my mom. I spent most of the film staring in a sort of intrigued, tickled and horrified trance, coming-to every once in a while to lower the volume in flushed embarrassment. I remember having the impression that it was over the top - the passion too desperate, the sex scenes so long that they became exhausting - but I liked it, and have wanted to watch it again ever since.

Well, come to find out that right around the corner at Bloomsburg VideoStop, Gojitmal/Lies sits innocently on the shelf in the foreign section, where, because it has subtitles, no one would guess that it actually belongs in the pornography section. I scooped it right up, wondering if it had only been the fireworks of the early twenties that had made me like it before - would I find it distasteful, offensive, crass, pathetic? I remembered certain scenes that had given me a nervous, slightly shocked feeling, and I was pleased to discover that I didn't have any of that the second time around. Everything they did just seemed natural and full of tender passion and human experience. I think I understand the characters better than before, and maybe just having seen it before took some of the surprise out of it. Maybe you'd like to give it a try.

Let's Remove Our Clothes and Frolic Naked Among the Rocks

Yesterday we were scampering on the Morroccan granite and sitting in a saucer of milk; today I did wend my way out to the farthest marshes of the Kansas Road. You were right, Jophet - I was unprepared for the punch of Unity I would feel when the blue cottages of the Strawberry Patch came into view. I drove in and parked where I always had, in between the second and third cabins, got out and saw all around me exhausted bodies curled up together in bunks, sprawled in the grass strewn with empties, working out the kinks of "Dirty Old Town" or "Frauline", bringing a stack of plates and Sriratch out to the picnic tables, brushing their teeth at the spigot, giving/receiving piggy back rides to and from the lunch truck (Dame de tu lonche, mami!)retiring by 9pm, and etcetera.

A little farther up the road was the bathing stream where shimmery ghosts scrubbed themselves clean with pebbles and the greek olive oil soap was passed around until it finally came to rest in its Teddy Peanut Butter Jar.

I stopped for fuel at the Airline Diner and relieved them of their last whoopie pie (it was whipped creamy), and then I drove for five more hours back to Santa Clara. I stopped in on Frank and Paloma and we caught up for a bit. I told Frank what Jophet had said, about how some people in Cherryfield think that the Strawberry Patch housing is exploitative, and he shot back a lovely, familiar dismissive look as he noted that it was always better than where we were living for the rest of those years - "Running water right next to the house!" "Reliable stoves!" "A refridgerator!" "An outlet!" "Showers!" They loaded me up with fat blueberries and snap peas and sent me on my way back to Bloomsburg.

I heart carving spoons!