The Flaneuse

This afternoon I had the pleasure of watching my first Antonioni film - La notte. The best part of this film was something I was taught could never authentically exist - the female flaneur. But there she was, Jeanne Moreau. Her watchful eyes absorbed and processed everything that made Marcello Mastroianni squirm behind his childish ones. With a few simple words she made his weakness and vanity so clear. With one true human friendship she trumped his sad virile exploits.

A few years ago I was in the NEC libriary and I decided to read the Tragedy of Medea. Reading about the spurned lover gone mad with jealousy, I came across this quote:

When in excess and past all limits Love doth come
he brings not glory or repute to man;
But if the Cyprian queen in moderate might approach
no goddess is as full of charm as she.
Never, O never, Lady mine,
discharge at me from thy golden bow
a shaft invincible
in passion's venom dipped.

It scared me, for love had come to me both in excess and past all limits. I wrote it down on a piece of paper and put it in my diary, a black book identical to one used by Jophet. We had liberated them from a big box book store, much to the scowling disapproval of the Lover Past All Limits.

This morning I woke up, rolled over, and saw my old diary, pages long since filled with handwriting not soothing and of all sizes (not in the Waldorf style), lying on the floor. I picked it up and opened it to find that rumpled piece of paper marked in graphite by a lovely young woman, navigating through the fog. Her message was for me, but I still don't know what to do with it.

Aaaaah!!
I just found out that Penelope Cruz says that Victoria Abril's performace as Marina in Atame inspired her to become an actress! I am so grateful to be breathing air on the same planet as these people! I want to kiss and hug them! I long for Almodovar. I know that we are connected through human experience and nothing more and I have to satisfy myself with that.
Marina! She's pictured here twice - for anyone who has not seen Tie Me Up Tie Me Down she is the slammin hottie with the fan, and the one with the gag being carried by Antonio Banderas from a few posts back.

Recently I said I wanted to go back and talk to young Lenya, and last night I got the chance. When I was 13 I started taking acting classes at Hedgerow Theater. My best friend in the class was Jessica Graham. She was the first person who ever made me feel proud to live in Media. We did wonderful things together, like smoke cigarettes outside the mall, go out to dinner by ourselves, and jump on the big trampoline in her mom's yard with her brother and sisters. I stopped taking the acting class after 9th grade because I had a domineering boyfriend who liked to sever me from my friends in the manner of a sailfish slashing through a school of small prey.

Her father recently passed away and she's been back in Media taking care of him. I ran into her in town and went over to her mom's house last night. It felt like a perfect pattern that we lost touch for a long time and now we have come together again. There was no sense of distance or awkwardness - it was like our two young selves were coming together again, having taken some time apart to set off fireworks. Blessed be!

She's an actress in LA and this is one of her movies: