I’m back on eBay. I just had to prove that I live where I say that I do, and promise not to do whatever they said that I did, which I didn’t do in the first place. Having jumped through all of their hoops, it’s good to be back amidst the possibility of more fine mid-century treasures.
I saw a delightful film the other night, a new film by Alain Resnais of all people, with whom I definitely don’t associate the term “delightful,” based on an operetta from the 1920’s, Not on the Lips, a really fun musical very much not of our time and utterly enjoyable. And speaking of mid-century treasures, I also watched Barbarella again, I guess because of all this Jane Fonda-ness around. What she does with that role is amazing. It’s basically her husband’s wet dream, and she takes this completely exploitative and stupid film and invigorates it with excellent comic timing and deadpan intelligence. The opening sequence, in which she slowly and clumsily strips off her space suit, and THEN turns on the gravity, is nothing short of visionary. And I absolutely MUST have a space capsule like hers, lined in long-haired brown acrylic fur. Every scene involves her being ravaged by some hostile but ultimately benign alien being, her spacesuit partially bitten off, some sexy guy saving her and then making love to her in the barbaric way that extraterrestrials do, and then another fabulous designer latex outfit. Every single man in the film lusts after her, except for the dude with wings, Pygar, who’s BLIND, but he at least gets to cop a feel when he finds her unconscious.
So channel surfing the other day I came across a piece of vegan propaganda on the public access channel about how poorly animals are treated and decided on the spot to be a vegetarian. This was of course following the Michael Pollen piece a while back about the cattle industry and corn-fed beef. Seeing those cute little piggies just broke my heart, and I pledged half-heartedly not to support such cruelty. I don’t have a problem with eating animals, just the cruelty part, so I’m limiting my animal intake to creatures with not much in the way of higher brain function, like seafood, and meat that I know has been raised in luxurious country settings. So not really a vegetarian. And I’m already a slow-food enthusiast. What would you call me? A compassionate carnivore?