#4 and I went to see Art School Confidential tonight. We both wondered what people who hadn’t been to art school would think of it. We agreed that to us, all of the insightful and accurate observations about art school intrigued and delighted us more than the plot, but to others, the siting of the story in art school might be secondary to considerations of things like plot and narrative. People coming out seemed to dislike it pretty intensely. “I want my money back,” someone pleaded as The End came up on the screen, and three couples each chanted “Horrible” as they shuffled out. In San Francisco!
Well, I thought it was great, with that kind of purposely bad acting that Todd Solondz and his generation have woven into their bleak abstractions of reality. I love that kind of artificiality in film. It’s different from the John Waters School of bad acting–which seems an extension of camp–drawing our attention to the inherent fakeness of movies.
We had a fantabulous dinner at House of Nanking afterwards, as usual asking Mr. Pokerface to take care of us with three dazzling dishes of his choice, including a dish of calamari strips lightly fried and served in a coconut milk, vinegar and hot oil sauce. Omigod. We walked back to #4’s usual parking spot in the city, off of 6th Street near the Chronicle. There are always parking places there because of the broken bottles, needles, piss, and crack ho’s. I don’t think the Meter Maids even go there.
We seem to be getting along smashingly, #4 and I, although I’m still not feeling anything related to a spark, more like a warm fuzzy feeling that most likely is a friendly warm fuzzy feeling and not a lovey dovey warm fuzzy feeling.
#8 spent the night again last night, the hottest night of the year. I do not do well in heat. When I see sweaty couples making soupy love in movies set in Vietnam, I get a rash. When I have to actually be in that kind of heat, and have sex in it, I just want to get the whole uncomfortable thing over with and push him over to his side of the bed as fast as possible. Plus I had to watch Charmed. “Now, why are they hurling fireballs at each other again, honey?” I pleaded with him to give up Desperate Housewives so that we could watch The Sopranos, and chat about the warped duality at the core of the Cosa Nostra’s sense of morality. “But ‘leading a good life’ excludes on-the-clock murder and extortion, honey.”