Last week BC and I watched Pascale Ferran’s brilliant Lady Chatterley, based on “John Thomas and Lady Jane,” D.H. Lawrence’s second version of his Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I am still moist. It’s a beautiful beautiful film. It doesn’t represent sexuality as something detached from the rest of human experience, but how we’re the same before, during and after love. The lovers separate at the end of the film, agreeing on an open future that may or may not include them being together in it, but they’ve evolved so fully because of their love, accessed such intimate truths, there’s no sadness or regret, just excitement about what’s ahead. Plus Parkin is hot as all get out.
The birds have converged on Casa Coco. There are so many robins in my backyard munching down on the cotoneaster berries and frolicking in the ashtrays-cum-birdbaths I feel like Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s Cinderella. Soon they’ll patch together a dress for me and take me away to the ball in an Italian Prune Plum carriage. They’ve eaten all the berries from the top of one tree over the past few months, and with plenty more, they’re going to be here for a while.
I woke up early Valentine’s Day morning to a slightly stronger version of a familiar scent that registered after a moment as not my own. Tossing back the sheets I was surprised to find a fairly large and colorful deposit from my bed-guest, which formed a trail from the bed down the hall to the bathroom, where an auditory experience competed with the olfactory and visual cacophony forming my morning greeting. Valentine’s Day morning was spent scrubbing my Tibetan hall runner and washing sheets. The SuperBears and I made crabcakes for dinner, then BC and I snuggled up to The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster. My sparkling hall runner, Burt’s basket and Marvin Hamlisch’s cheesy score made the perfect Valentine.
I gave up the Gilbert & George opening last night to see my friend Kevin in a play about an imagined meeting between Hitler and Walt Disney. Kevin made a very commanding and hot little Hitler. The rest of the cast did a great job, too, and while BC, Reese and I thought that the writer could develop his ideas, dialogue and staging a bit, we thought that the ideas were intriguing. I would have loved to have seen Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl’s affair developed, only to be completely ignored by the other characters, for instance–their ignorance mirroring the German people’s turning away from what was happening in front of them. In other words, too much of the ideas were spelled out in the dialogue–explained really. Conveying the ideas within the action and interaction among the characters would have made for a more lyrical and thought-provoking play. The play ends with Valter and Adolf playing on the floor with models of their kingdoms, just two boys with big ideas.
I’m gallery hopping with Emily today. The bears are in town, so I’m seeking aesthetic-, instead of sensual-healing this lovely day.