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July 11, 2005Great weekend.Friday night I had dinner with my parents and got started on The Sea Inside, a Spanish movie about a quadriplegic fighting for the right to "die with dignity." It all began innocently enough. I was walking through the Blockbuster aisles when I spotted The Sea Inside. I'd been wanting to see this movie ever since I saw a beautiful preview for it a couple months ago, but as soon as I read the short description ("quadriplegic fighting for right to die") I found myself wishing I hadn't picked it up. One of my greatest fears is being paralyzed. I've spent so much of my life dancing, being aware of my body, enjoying moving through space. I can't imagine an immobile life... That's the biggest reason I'll never go skydiving/bungee jumping. If only I had done these ridiculous things before I was so painfully aware of what could go wrong. I still drive, and I still fly on planes, and I still go out at night and enjoy the city life, but I feel I've subconsciously drawn a line in the sand... A minute later I noticed The Motorcycle Diaries, another one I'm dying to finally see, but as much as I wanted another movie to take the burden of The Sea Inside off my hands, I couldn't do it. Somehow I just knew I had to watch it... and I'm so happy I did. In contrast to the great actors who fall into the body comedy tradition of Chaplin & Keaton (I thought Tom Cruise in Collateral was fantastic in this regard), the lead man, Javier Bardem, acted lying down. This movie also had one of the most tender and sensual love scenes I have ever seen. For a scene that is less than two minutes long and includes no nudity... impressive. Tender, tender moment. The whole movie is touching. It's like this: walking by dozens of bright photographs at an exhibit when a black and white portrait catches your eye, so you stop and stare while the other visitors rush past you, and you forget that anyone else in the world exists. Alejandro Amenabar, the director, also made The Others, a horror film with Nicole Kidman. How weird... In an interview he does say that his movies are about death, but other than that I don't see many similarities between the two. Maybe I need to revisit The Others. Bardem is also in The Dancer Upstairs, another movie I need to see. Turns out he's also in Collateral as a "fearsome drug dealer." Whoaaaa. Clearly need to watch that movie again. AND he had a small part in Almodovar's High Heels. This guy is a keeper. I started getting sleepy around 1am and stopped the movie, not wanting to give it only half my attention. Saturday night, Erin, Jackie&Tom, Mr. Pav & his daughter, and Mrs. L came over for a "graduation" dinner. This title served as a good excuse to get a bunch of Pallotti people who I love together for dinner. Thanks for coming :) After a fantastic dinner with so many people I love, a bunch of us from work headed out to Canton's Pearls. My first jazz night in Baltimore. In the end, it did not turn out to be a jazz night. The place was empty, and the music didn't seem awesome enough for us to stay, so we headed across the way to Canton Square, an area littered with bars. A white Russian and rum&coke later, we found ourselves at a bar called Speakeasy. We recalled from our US History studies (ok ok, and movies... :D) that the speakeasies of the Prohibition Era required a password, and thought about how absolutely cool it would be to give a password in order to enter a sexy exclusive bar nowadays... Got home around 1:30am, finished The Sea Inside, to my great joy. Sunday was an in and out quick busy day: return clothes to the mall, gym, pool, an episode of Family Guy back home, and a reading of the Epilogue to Salmon of Doubt (mourning Douglas Adams' death), as recommended by Slav in response to my Softball Lament. I'm enjoying drowning in jazz these days. I've gotten to know two Oscar Peterson cd's well, ripped through an Art Tatum (mostly because I didn't like it much). I'm also loving being immersed in hip-hop once more. Slav is committed to not only catching me up on the last 4 years of hip-hop but introducing me to awesome new stuff. And with Vanessa's visit last last weekend, I'm getting even more hip-hop support, NY style. Not to mention that she promised me a massive cd of dancehall wonderfulness. Marc, if you read this, you should know that my relationship with dancehall depends on Nadal... Found a place in Ellicott City that has hip-hop class on Thursdays, Next Monday I might go hear Tegan and Sara perform at the 9:30 Club in DC with a couple coworkers. I JUST noticed that De La Soul and Rahzel will be at the same place the NEXT night. Might have to pull that trip to DC two nights in a row... As Will likes to say, CRAZINESS!!!!!!! |
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