I Have Been Thinking...

...I have been thinking about the present, the past, and the future, about life in New York and life in Louisiana, about things as they are, as they were, and as they might be. I have been throwing out old clothes, old music, old assumptions. It can be difficult to get rid of the familiar--distracting, exhausting, frustrating, painful. It is also a relief. It can produce lightness--of mind, of movement...I have been thinking about the price of a plane ticket, about the cost of shipping files across state lines, about getting used to being with people I have not seen in years...I was born and grew up in Louisiana, and have lived a long time in New York, and it seems that I am going to return to Louisiana...The city has grown too expensive: and, it has been always expensive...It charges us for our dreams, our passions...It gives us the possibility of art, of friendship, of fulfillment...Today, I saw Woody Allen's film Vicky Cristina Barcelona in a small, independent theater in Kew Gardens, Queens, a neighborhood I first knew many years ago, when I first arrived in New York. I liked the film with reservations. Woody Allen's sensibility is such a strong part of his films--it is expressed in his dialogue--that he has a strong authorial presence, a strong cinematic presence, even when he is not in a film and not featured as part of its soundstrack. He is very much a storyteller; and the film is presented as a story. The actors--Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johannson, Rebecca Hall, all charming--can seem to be imitating Woody Allen just by the fact that they are speaking his lines! It is hard not to be conscientious of Woody Allen's history while watching his films; and that can make for an odd film-viewing experience--less liberating than one might hope; and yet, I liked the beauty of his performers and locations (I kept noticing the colors--of skin, of light, of landscape, of furnishings, in the film: the gold, brown, red and green). The nature of passion, its lack of order and predictability, is the subject of the film, and it is treated intelligently and sympathetically; and much of it is handled well, though a few times I wondered if there were more authentic "takes" left on the cutting room floor. I liked the ambiguity of the ending, and I was glad I saw the film...Tonight I heard writer Junot Diaz, a Pulitzer Prize winner, read and answer questions about his work at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan. He spoke of being grateful to his audience for his success. He talked about books facilitating both community and learning. He said some wise things, but he also said some shallow, slangy things in which he used too much vulgarity (it was like seeing someone move between an ideal private self toward a mundane social self: though I know for someone else, the more intellectual comments might seem abstract and artificial, and the curse words real and true)...New York days...New York nights...