Four Eyes

Hey-

This started out as a letter to my friend Suzanne, but I thought everyone should know about it.

So, about 3 years or so ago, after just having moved to the city, I auditioned for this really experimental and collaborative film called Four Eyed Monsters in a really shady raw space in Williamsburg. The guy and the girl that were writing and directing seemed like really laid back artists, but didn't seem much like film people. They were making a movie about how their relationship began and how in the beginning they agreed to only communicate via art projects. They were scruffy, inarticulate, and far too relaxed.

It just occurred to me that, in retrospect, they might have been hipsters.

After my audition, which they now have exclusive rights to, they asked if I would lend them my voice for the opening sequence--It was a layering of voices of single people in New York City, all of whom were searching for something significant and important. I would just have to repeat a line over and over again adjusting my voice to their direction.

Of course, like a dumbass I signed a release form and said yes, because I wanted to still be considered for the film.

Well, since they finished editing the movie, I've gotten a litany of junk mail re: screenings and podcasts. I've ignored it all, and even tried to unsubscribe to their mailing list, but Susan, the aforementioned girl, implored me to stay on it.

Of course like a dumbass I did. I remembered them being really, really nice in the auditions, so I figured, siiiiiigh, why the hell not?

This week, the week before fourth of July weekend, things have been dead at work, and this week also happens to be the week that Four Eyed Monsters is screening at Cinema Village. I've gotten more junk email from them in the last couple of days than I have in a year, so I decided to go ahead and watch their podcast do-dads. For about an hour, I watched what was essentially, bonus footage and "making of" features. I immediately became hooked on the filmmakers' (Arin's and Susan's) journey. The episodic podcasts, in and of themselves, could be combined to make a documentary of two truly green filmmakers. Every "character" in the podcast (the wide-eyed artists making art through risk, the well-meaning and supportive parents/executive producers, the leachy actors, the *literally* psychotic acting teacher) is compelling.

As shown in the podcasts, after the film starts getting some attention, and Arin and Susan are invited to Slamdance (the other Park City festival) a few of the actors in the film start grappling for writing and directing credits---essentially stealing the autobiographical nature of this collaborative film conceived by its starring couple: Arin and Susan.

Please, please, please if you are a filmmaker, or are interested in the filmmaking process, I beg you to watch these podcasts. They are really well-done, really compelling and addictive, and by watching it, you feel as if you are a part of the process. Better yet, you want to tell everyone about the film.

But that's independent art, isn't it? Art that is made successful by the consumer directly, with not a lot to obstruct artist and audience?

I've yet to see the actual film, which is showing again tonight at 7:30. Because of the success of last night's screening, Cinema Village is going to show the film every Thursday in September. I'm pretty sure I'll catch it then.

It looks like a great experiment. I'm happy I wasn't cast in it, and I can't wait to see it.

Let me know what you think.

Jen

Food Tastes Better in Italian

This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading by the fantastic Jeanette Winterson: The Powerbook. It's a quick read and it's been consuming my attention on the commute to work recently. I've been taking it in in spurts, because I love the language and simply don't want it to be over-with. Ms. Winterson is known for studying love and its roots like a great mystery. She does this through comparisons to other worlds: logic, mathematics, history, horticulture, cooking... In short, she uses everything. She uses everything tangible to define the intangible, and she almost succeeds every time. You journey with her on her quest to define love, and everytime she experiences a breakthrough, you experience it with her.
Her prose is really poetry in paragraph form, and it's complex. I can read a paragraph and completely lose sight of its literal meaning, but I get the push of feeling behind it. It's almost as if her chapters are impressionistic paintings. You get the shape first, then take note of the brush strokes.

If you haven't read Written on the Body yet, I highly-recommend it. A great way to start. Be careful, though. Her writing has a way of conjuring old feelings for old loves. My friend Katy once said that Written on the Body takes her back to a time of love in her life where everything was symbolic. Everything meant something other than what it appeared to be and everything was such exquisite torture.

I dare you.

Anyway--enjoy this excerpt:

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I went into the kitchen. I love food. The clarity of it, the direct pleasure. I love it simple, absolutely fresh and freshly cooked. At my worst, like now, when nothing makes sense to myself, I'll cook something as a way of forcing order back into chaos. As a way of re-establishing myself, at least in this one thing. It steadies my hands.

Salsa Di Pomodori

Take a dozen plum tomatoes and slice them lengthways as though they were your enemy. Fasten them into a lidded pot and heat for ten minutes.

Chop an onion without tears.

Dice a carrot without regret.

Shard a celery stick as though its flutes and grooves were the indentations of your past.
Add to the tomatoes and cook unlidded for as long as it takes for them to yeild.Throw in salt, pepper, and a twist of sugar.

Pound the lot through a sieve or a mouli, or a blender. Remember--they are the vegetables, you are the cook.

Return to a soft flame and lubricate with olive oil. Add a spoonful at a time, stirring like an old witch, until you achieve the right balance of slippery firmness.
Serve on top of fresh spaghetti. Cover with rough new parmesan and cut basil. Raw emotion can be added now.

Serve. Eat. Reflect.

I put the steaming plate in front of her. She took a mouthful, then another.
'This is fantastic.'

'Food tastes better in Italian.'

Thickly, through a mouthful of spaghetti, she said, 'My husband is in Oxford.'