Oscar's REM cycles
Feb. 16th, 2002 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enteleinIt seemed like reality, at first.
I asked Scott for his credit card as I sat down in front of my computer, and I found a fairly cheap fare to LA on some airline's website. Distracted by other things (including this project I really am working on in waking life), I took some other notes on the paper containing my reservation info, and I forgot to book the return flight. Somehow.
And this is how I ended up in Burbank, CA, driving around in a rental car, feeling shabby, with my bag full of dirty laundry. I hadn't had time to wash clothes, really, or I'd procrastinated (more likely), and so there I was, dragging a big old duffel bag full of clothes around with me amongst the sunshine and waving palm trees of southern California.
I called Jon on my cell -- he was at work, and slightly annoyed, but glad to hear I had arrived alright. He wasn't aware I was actually in Burbank at that very moment, and so when he was giving directions, I was looking up at the very street signs he was describing to me. They were very pretty street signs, painted a powder-sky blue, with white lettering. One of the streets was Tull Street.
The building he was sitting in was a low, glass-walled building, a large study hall-like room with desks in long rows, all facing one direction. A myriad of people sat at the desks, and after a few seconds I could see the fuzzy back of Jon's head, as I hung up the cell phone. I went to the studio to wait.
At the studio, which was really just a sound stage with a narrow raked set of stadium seats set up in front of a screen, I took a seat and waited. I felt terrible for just flying out there with so little notice to myself, or anyone else, but it seemed like one of those unavoidable things at the time. Before I could feel too guilty, though, I saw my college friend Kelly, come into the studio, and as I was greeting her and asking her what the hell she was doing in Burbank, some rent-a-cops came along and asked to inspect her bag and to ask her some questions.
She was obviously irritated, but acquiesced on account of the heightened security and cautious atmosphere. They even made her remove a smiley face sticker she had stuck to her hand or something. I wonder why they didn't bother me, with my big bag of laundry and my loitering around the studio and all.
Anyway, it came time for the screening I was there to see, and Jon came along, and pretty soon the studio was filled up with people eagerly chatting and networking before the lights were dimmed.
The beginning of the film started out beautifully, from what I can remember. The beginnings of music, a huge pile of the most pefect raspberries ever, the conceit of someone being fed said raspberries, and then it just all went to hell.
It was like this stupid fucking artsy fartsy music video for Chocolat, as the camera panned out, and we were in this big airy room with lots of light and wooden floors. Beautiful People filled the screen, dancers, with their hips aligned with their perfect feet, and they were dancing, feeding each other chocolates, and then all of the sudden chocolate began pouring into the room, like a mini flash flood.
The rest of the film was various close-ups and pan shots of the dancers/lovers swimming through the chocolate, being artistically erotic and sensual and I remember sitting in my little folding seat and snickering quietly to myself. I would have snickered more loudly, but it suddenly occurred to me that the people in the seats around me looked a little more familiar, as my eyes traveled from the screen to the audience and back again.
The film finally ended, and as the lights came up, our "host" for the evening stood in the main aisle and talked about the film.
He was wearing a top hat and tails, looking a little like the Zidler character from Moulin Rouge, and he just about tore the film to shreds, just lambasted it, grilled it, toasted it up, smoking and charred. Called it "trash, tripe, a very obvious Miramax move to increase rentals of Chocolat" -- on and on he went, and the audience was obviously scandalized, and at the same time, bored.
Miramax? In my dream I looked for Harvey Weinstein, but the dream glitched and I saw Michael Moore instead, who was grumbling quite ferociously at the screening host, hissing to his closest cohorts, "What this fuck is this!"
And then I awoke.
I asked Scott for his credit card as I sat down in front of my computer, and I found a fairly cheap fare to LA on some airline's website. Distracted by other things (including this project I really am working on in waking life), I took some other notes on the paper containing my reservation info, and I forgot to book the return flight. Somehow.
And this is how I ended up in Burbank, CA, driving around in a rental car, feeling shabby, with my bag full of dirty laundry. I hadn't had time to wash clothes, really, or I'd procrastinated (more likely), and so there I was, dragging a big old duffel bag full of clothes around with me amongst the sunshine and waving palm trees of southern California.
I called Jon on my cell -- he was at work, and slightly annoyed, but glad to hear I had arrived alright. He wasn't aware I was actually in Burbank at that very moment, and so when he was giving directions, I was looking up at the very street signs he was describing to me. They were very pretty street signs, painted a powder-sky blue, with white lettering. One of the streets was Tull Street.
The building he was sitting in was a low, glass-walled building, a large study hall-like room with desks in long rows, all facing one direction. A myriad of people sat at the desks, and after a few seconds I could see the fuzzy back of Jon's head, as I hung up the cell phone. I went to the studio to wait.
At the studio, which was really just a sound stage with a narrow raked set of stadium seats set up in front of a screen, I took a seat and waited. I felt terrible for just flying out there with so little notice to myself, or anyone else, but it seemed like one of those unavoidable things at the time. Before I could feel too guilty, though, I saw my college friend Kelly, come into the studio, and as I was greeting her and asking her what the hell she was doing in Burbank, some rent-a-cops came along and asked to inspect her bag and to ask her some questions.
She was obviously irritated, but acquiesced on account of the heightened security and cautious atmosphere. They even made her remove a smiley face sticker she had stuck to her hand or something. I wonder why they didn't bother me, with my big bag of laundry and my loitering around the studio and all.
Anyway, it came time for the screening I was there to see, and Jon came along, and pretty soon the studio was filled up with people eagerly chatting and networking before the lights were dimmed.
The beginning of the film started out beautifully, from what I can remember. The beginnings of music, a huge pile of the most pefect raspberries ever, the conceit of someone being fed said raspberries, and then it just all went to hell.
It was like this stupid fucking artsy fartsy music video for Chocolat, as the camera panned out, and we were in this big airy room with lots of light and wooden floors. Beautiful People filled the screen, dancers, with their hips aligned with their perfect feet, and they were dancing, feeding each other chocolates, and then all of the sudden chocolate began pouring into the room, like a mini flash flood.
The rest of the film was various close-ups and pan shots of the dancers/lovers swimming through the chocolate, being artistically erotic and sensual and I remember sitting in my little folding seat and snickering quietly to myself. I would have snickered more loudly, but it suddenly occurred to me that the people in the seats around me looked a little more familiar, as my eyes traveled from the screen to the audience and back again.
The film finally ended, and as the lights came up, our "host" for the evening stood in the main aisle and talked about the film.
He was wearing a top hat and tails, looking a little like the Zidler character from Moulin Rouge, and he just about tore the film to shreds, just lambasted it, grilled it, toasted it up, smoking and charred. Called it "trash, tripe, a very obvious Miramax move to increase rentals of Chocolat" -- on and on he went, and the audience was obviously scandalized, and at the same time, bored.
Miramax? In my dream I looked for Harvey Weinstein, but the dream glitched and I saw Michael Moore instead, who was grumbling quite ferociously at the screening host, hissing to his closest cohorts, "What this fuck is this!"
And then I awoke.
