BRICK

I highly reccomend checking out the movie BRICK. Kevin and I saw it the other night. There will be spoilers ahead, so be warned...

The movie, a film noir set in high school, captures the feeling of secondary school. Everything is life and death. Adults barely rate and if they do, they are stooges or antagonists. Some say that its nothing but style, but I disagree. By handing the teenaged characters adult-scale issues to deal with, the film blurs the line of adolescence. Is there an adolescence in a world so complicated? What does it mean to be grown-up? The main character takes on a responsibility to seek out the what has happened to his friend, his love. He is faced with mortality and morality. And we, as the audience, are given what seems to be a neat package nicely wrapped that eventually spins out of control with violence and betrayal. The ground is shifting at every step and even at the end, we can only guess who has the last word. Or, to be precise, what the last word is.

It troubles me though that the ultimate victim, the object of the hunt, the fight, and so on, is a young girl. She is blond and waifish, fragile in her flowing skirt and oversized sweater. The conflict is played out over her body, inside her body, as the men fight to claim her heart, her allegiance, the promise held within her. In the end, they fight for memories. She's dead. They show us that right off the top.

Maybe the film is about rewriting history. There is certainly a strong flavour of regret — how one's actions can spiral out of control and down a pathway where you can lose everything.

What I wonder is what happens the day after the movie is over. Do they all just go back to school? Eating lunch and skipping home room? Or has something changed irrevocably? Certainly the boy has become a man, but I suspect he was already was from the first shot of him contemplating her body face down in the gutter.

Formless thoughts. But an interesting movie. Funny. Very very funny.

two poems from a peeping tomasina

Tonight on my way home I was riding along 10th avenue between Clark and Commercial. I like riding on that road because of the way the trees overhang the street. It feels like a tunnel of tree. And it reminds me of when I lived a block north from there in this house I shared with a couple boys, one of whom was my boyfriend. I also like riding along there at night — the first road I rode at night — because I can peer into people’s windows. For some reason the people who live along that road all have a taste for saturated colours on their walls, which makes it fun to imagine living with that kind of colour and not making any kind of commitment myself. I am happy with my shades of taupe, preferring blankness. Or perhaps I’m just lazy. Or frightened by the difficulty of obscuring the saturation with a cleansing coat of taupe. Perhaps.

So there I was, riding, looking into people’s windows when I noticed an open door. A couple was standing in the doorway. She was facing out, at the road. He was in front of her facing in. But neither of then could truly be described as facing any direction, because their attention did not extend beyond the bubble of each other. Or more specifically, the focal point of the right length of her neck. Her head was thrown back, exposing the jugular. Eyes closed. Face still. His face was obscured because it was buried in the curve of her neck. In his right hand a package dangled, forgotten. They didn’t move as I passed. They looked like a statue named Love is Ecstasy. A statue named: The Goodnight Kiss. A statue named: Won’t You Invite Me In? I stared rudely, as a commuter can, knowing she will keep moving on, hidden in the dark street made darker by the tunnel of trees, by the leaves that are starting to sprout, by the one hour leapt forward. A spring night.

A few blocks farther down as another populated porch. Young men lounging. Summer is coming.

* * * * *

And now, as promised, the poems. This is a new form for me. I think I like it. Tell me if they totally suck, OK? Then I promise, I won't post them. I'll just keep them to myself...

A chainlink fence.
Flowers,
attached with twist ties proclaim:
I'M SORRY.
Once fresh,
dead now.
It's snowing

* * * * *

In the AVEDA store on Robson
I rub a perfume called LOVE
into the wrist
I profer to him later
in the Patricia Hotel Pub.

He smells.

Nose against skin.

Then says:
I thought love
Smelled like your shampoo.