A few weeks ago I went with some friends to see Where the Wild Things Are (Were?). I haven’t chrystallized an opinion on the film yet – I know that I think the idea is noble, and the soundtrack, and Dave Eggers. And that I was struck with how muted and undynamic it was– in a deliberate, lulling way: the background and the foreground were always similar colours; little contrast but a few notable instances of bright blue sky or sweater. The landscape of events was similarly solomonic; most scenes seemed to have been rationed the same degree of intensity, so that new events weren’t relieved too sharply against the old.
I’m suspending any other judgment partially because the context of the experience – the continual economy of snacks and spiked drinks (spikejonzed! haha…) passed sideways along the row – was not that conducive to serious attention. Afterwards we went to a local bar where we applied free jukebox credits to bad songs. And still afterwards, one of the friends and I had breakfast, at a nearly empty twenty-four hour diner, served by a lovely oldish, doting waitress. It was downpouring, and she said: “I hope it dries for you”.
I love how she said that: earnestly, in a hearty New York accent, and vaguely enough that I could quote it, in theory, in a pinch,in other circumstances without compromising its (unexpected, 3 am) eloquence. It feels like a good phrase to know exists, like a kind thing to be able to say when wounds or paintings are still fresh. Too lofty and overwrought, of course, to ever actually say out loud of anything but the weather*. Case in point: a painter-friend recently told me about when he started using oils rather than acrylic, accidentally buying a tube and being confused when it wasn’t drying. His brother called him an idiot and taunted him with the fact that oil paint didn’t dry “FOR A HUNDRED YEARS”!** So it’s waitress vs. brother, I guess.
*Just as we wouldn’t say it ‘for me’: Kant says when we judge something (drying, eg.?) beautiful, we never admit to the ‘for me’ by saying it aloud; though it’s true, the admission ruins the objectivity (confidence; integrity) of the judgment. I think this is not unrelated to suppressing the giddiness that someone made something beautiful (themselves, eg, on some special occasion) for me.
**More of Austin’s (dried, oil) paintings, including the one above so uncannily like the Wild Thing scape, at www.austinfurtakcole.com
