Philip came over for a light pasta and Irma Vep tonight. I made some really strong espresso and now I can’t sleep and the bf of the guy downstairs is throwing up so it’s not like I’d be asleep anyway and there’s no one new at Bear-licious, well, no one new since a little while ago, and where is Big Chris when I’m actually awake? Irma Vep is a French film from a few years ago starring Maggie Cheung playing Maggie Cheung shooting a contemporary remake of Les Vampires for a French auteur director who breaks down and eventually disappears from the set as everything falls apart in a superb and almost comic self-reflective glimpse at the current state of French cinema. It’s really weird seeing Maggie Cheung seeming so unstar-like and speaking English. It’s even weirder seeing all these cineastes who have no idea that they’re working alongside one of Asia’s biggest movie stars. (When Bob and I were in Havana we visited a client of an architect friend, who lived in this big house and had a blonde girlfriend, a cellphone and bodyguards and a TV screen that descended from the ceiling with the push of a button. On our way out of the country I casually glanced at the TV in the airport to see our friend’s client singing on the screen–“Hey Bob, look, there’s Pablo on TV,” as the camera pulled back to show him singing to a sold-out STADIUM. We had lunched with Cuba’s Elton John and didn’t know.) Anyway, I had to show Philip a little bit of In the Mood For Love to give him a feel for Maggie’s superstar-ness.
I completed step two of my two-step alchoholic program today–adding the sugar and more alchohol to my Limoncello base. It has another month to steep and settle down, but soon, you will enjoy the alchoholic fruit of my, uhh, fruit.