Letter

A young woman in a ratty sweater wanders up to a riverbank and seems ready to fall in, but then a standing kayaker in full black wetsuit floats by like an alien messenger, causing her to change course. She returns home where her exasperated boyfriend asks why she hasn’t been answering her phone. Then they’re in the backseat of a car on the way out to the country to take a boat trip but just before they get on the boat she tells the boyfriend she’s not feeling well and wants to go home. He borrows the car to take her to the bus station but rolls the car on the way and is killed. She survives.

A middle-aged woman—who they nearly run into just before the rollover—hears the noise of the crash, runs down the road, then walks the young woman back to her house. The young woman starts a new life as a kind of surrogate daughter. She meets the older woman’s estranged husband and son. They don’t know what to make of her or how to act with their wife/mother now.

The way these four people fit into one another’s lives is uncanny and requires many stars to align just so but somehow the filmmaker makes it sort of inevitable. It’s a dream logic that only works in art.

I see the movie on Saturday and text K to see if she wants to see it. We’d seen the trailer a couple weeks back. We go on Tuesday and even though I know the plot points and reveals it takes nothing away from the simmering tension Petzold is able to maintain. His four characters are all lost and grief-stricken, they seemingly find a way out, all know it’s wrong, but keep the fantasy going because it feels better to pretend.

The big difference between the two screenings is an overheard conversation in the theater before the second viewing. An insufferable local filmmaker whines on and on to a retired critic about the state of local arts journalism somewhere behind our heads. They sound like Statler and Waldorf. It only takes me a minute to place both voices. I’ve had forgettable interactions with both these burnouts. They mention three or four others I know as well. Sometimes a big city feels very small. Fortunately, the lights dim and the trailers run, silencing the complainers.

Petzold names his movie after a piece of piano music by Ravel. The piano is a recurring part of the story. I’m listening to the soundtrack as I write this.

Go see Miroirs No. 3.

I read a few pages from William Gass’s Omensetter’s Luck into a microphone.

Flattered to’ve become a plot-point in a Bud Wiggins story.

My shows at Wormhole and Firecat are down but that art is available in case you have walls that need covering.

I text Mallory that I’m thinking of going to her reading in Pilsen on Saturday night but she answers she’s sick in bed and won’t make it. I decide to go anyway. It’s not far from home and I recognize a couple readers’ names from the internet.

I lock up my bike on the short iron fence to the right of the entrance. It’s a corner building and the poster said to look for the side door. It’s open and I see a set of mismatched chairs set up so I know I’m in the right place.

There are only a couple people inside. I’m early, as usual. I pick a seat and look around. The hostess offers wine but I still have my ice coffee from Jumping Bean.

The walls are partially repainted a dark green but show worn away layers of previous paint jobs, it’s intentional like ripped jeans. A small sidetable stands near the back wall like a podium for the chairs, holding a vase of flowers. The wall behind is full of lit candles in small compartments, stretching up to the ceiling. A small bathroom is on the left wall, with another passageway just beyond it. Several women go in and out, making final preparations for their guests’ arrival.

Soon the seats fill and the reading begins. From where I sit, the readers’ faces are each partially obscured by flowers. The level of interference varies according to the reader’s stature and posture. It’s dark too. Only candlelight and the phones and laptops off which they read to illuminate their faces.

I like the translations of 90s Chinese poems, first read in the original. The reader says the writer belonged to a group called the Lower Body Poets and, indeed, many of the poems had to do with functions of that part of the anatomy.

A few people ask about the drawings after and the hostess asks to take some photos. I want to ask her what she does here when there aren’t literary events. I heard her refer to the place as an apothecary but don’t see many vials or tinctures. Maybe they’re in another room through the doorway the women passed through before.

I wonder whether I could read in such darkness. I’d probably bring a clip light and ruin the vibe. I ask the hostess whether there’ll be more readings and she says she hopes there will be.

I go home and scan the drawings and post them online. Many of the readers “like” them and that’s the end of that.

I didn’t account for the weather when I accepted the bar shift. It was going to be a long day anyway. My Sundays are pretty set: I get to the Duck at 10:30am, right when they open, and stay till 1ish. Then I proceed at a leisurely pace to the bookstore for my 2pm-7pm shift.

Halfway into my second Bloody Mary, Joe texts to suggest I stay home to avoid the thunderstorms threatening the area. I assure him I won’t melt but ask if I can come in an hour early and leave at 6pm so I can have a proper dinner break before the 8pm barshift.

I fully intend to bike to the bar but five minutes into the ride my pants are soaked through from the pelting rain. I go home and change and go wait for the bus. First the Archer for half an hour, then, after giving up on that one, I walk to the Orange Line and catch the Ashland one north. By the time it drops me at Division, there are about twenty-five minutes till my shift. I grab an order of Popeye’s chicken tenders and wolf them down al fresco, shielded from the downpour in the bus shelter.

Mike sends a warning text about having the Oscars on. It’s a tradition going back to Kenny’s Sundays. Sure enough, the TV’s on when I walk through the door at five minutes to 8. I stopped watching the show many years ago because it made me angry whenever I wasn’t bored. Hollywood’s annual circle jerk is so far past irrelevant by now that even talking about it is to give it oxygen it doesn’t deserve. But Mike loves it and I would never stand in the way of love, no matter how misplaced.

There is a small group of guys watching. They ask me to put the close-captioning on and I ask Mike if he knows how to do that. The guys move to a booth after a few minutes but the show keeps going. The TV is atop the photobooth and the group running in and out of there between flashes occasionally looks up at the screen. At one point, a plastic surgery disaster slightly resembling Lionel Richie appears and I say, Hello…, as plaintively as I can manage. That gets a couple laughs.

Keefe comes in with a friend. He tells me they’ve just returned from Madison after playing a gig. Another bandmate insisted they eat at the world’s largest Culver’s. He said it was a Wisconsin tradition. Keefe remarks that Culver’s employees are always extra friendly. I say it’s the same at Trader Joe’s and that it always makes me a little uneasy.

As soon as PT Anderson’s worst movie wins best picture I turn the TV off.

A guy I know to be a Michelin-starred chef comes in and asks how many bars in the city are playing Tindersticks right now. That’s what I have on. I tell him I wouldn’t know. I guess he means this as a compliment. Then he shares a piece of gossip about the love life of a singer I know. Why he feels the need to share this is beyond me. Does he know there’s some personal history involved? As far as I know, the guy doesn’t even know my name.

My bartender from the Duck comes in toward the end of the night with her boyfriend and another friend. It’s the first time the shoe’s been on the other foot and she’s clearly amused by the experience.

It’s starting to snow as I walk down Division after locking up. The bus is going across just as I approach the intersection. I wave at it and to my surprise he stops. There is only one other passenger onboard the entire way to Bridgeport. The driver fairly shouts his end of the conversation at the other man the whole way. They talk about where they grew up, the sports they played, the guys they knew who’d made it to the big time.

I can talk all day and night, he says, and I believe him. It’s pretty funny and keeps me awake till it’s time to get off at the Orange Line.

Reviewed a great production of Mickle Maher’s Song About Himself and the Matisse show at the Art Institute.

In case you’re looking for a radio station, try this one.