In Good Company

[trinityvixen]

This has been a nice bookend weekend to a rather blah and awful week. I'm almost over my cold, though I was coughing something awful at book group.

Book group went exceedinly well, especially dinner-wise. I made my casserole, which just goes to show the things you know how to cook are better to make for people you want to impress than new recipes you've never tried. I knew when to put it in, when to do the veggies, the whole stuffs. Julie showed up ravenous--she must have eaten three times what I ate, easily half the casserole on her own. I was despairing that Sanaa's fiance would have nothing left when he got there; luckily, or not so for him, he was too tired from working to make it up to our apartment. We had a nice chat, picked out The Time Traveler's Wife for our next book, and Julie and I found a kinship in saying that we had no time for boyfriends and were too selfish with our time. Really, that's how she said it, exactly as I've said it a hundred times before. I was like, Julie is so teh coolest, and she's exactly right.

Heddy bailed on writing, but that was okay--she left my library book in a cab, which is less so, but she's paying for it, and I'll keep renewing it until I can't or she finds it from the lost and found (cabs have lost and founds, right?). Maybe someone will return it. Who knows?

So, I wasn't crazy enough to go out at the crack of ass to go see the unveiling, though Lisa did, and I'll be mooching pictures from her (she has some GREAT ones). In fact, after book club, I crashed really hard on the couch after getting about twenty minutes into Dawn of the Dead (I'd waited for Lisa not to be home to watch it, and then promptly fell asleep in the living room--man, I almost never do that). Lisa and I went out again for her, taking loads of pictures--Digital Cameras make Dayle picture happy. I think I got some nice ones, took a few videos to capture the wind sounds going through the curtains, one of Lisa walking dramatically through some wide gates. It was really fun.

Then, as we headed for higher ground on the west side of the park, we ran into a group that looked like a tour and almost went away, seeking more lonely paths, when Lisa noticed a woman with orange hair. Turns out we'd stumbled on Christo (sp?) and his wife's walk through the park, complete with cameras and guys operating boom mikes. We got close enough for me to get pictures of the backs of their heads, and by the time I ran ahead to get them front on, I botched it and had no time left as they were about to leave. Two little girls ran up with their dad, saying something about having been allowed to take pictures with the artist, but he kept saying he didn't have a camera. So, I asked him did he have an e-mail address, because I had a digital camera and would gladly send him the pictures. The three of them were really excited, as was I. Hey, so what if there were two strangers in the picture, I'd have a decent picture of the guy behind the Gates, and that's a New York story right there.

Unfortunately, it turned out that they were not the girls the artist's wife had decided to allow her and husband to be photographed with. The wife turned around and said, "Where is the man with his daughter?" looking right past the guy I talked to. When she didn't find him, she shrugged and sort-of made a fuck off gesture. I thought that was very French of her, though I managed somehow not to say so aloud. I let the little girls see my awful photos of the back of the artist's head, and told the father, apologetically, that maybe it was for the best that I hadn't been the one to take their picture.

Lisa and I then tried to go the Met to see if we could look down on the park from the roof, but it was closing and Lisa didn't have her ID, so we weren't paying. I got yelled at by a guard for walking over the rope after getting my bag checked instead of going all the way around to the end of it and doubling back to where Lisa was standing. Climbing over the rope, I was two steps from her. I was informed that that kind of behavior marked me as suspicious. Glad I made that guard's day, though he was probably just pissed he didn't get to be hero.

Heddy and I have been trying to see this since mid-January. In Good Company was playing at 9 and 11 at two different theaters, and we were too late to make the 9, so we were going to forgo the movie again to make an earlier showing of Sideways. About two minutes before I was going to leave to meet Heddy for that, I realized I really didn't want to see Sideways that night. It wasn't something particular I hated about the movie, I just couldn't muster enthusiasm for that kind of film. I called her, apologized, and begged her to see In Good Company at the later show. Heddy is notorious for falling asleep at movies that end by 11, let alone start then, so it was a big favor to ask, especially as we had to go to Lincoln Square for it. She gamely agreed, picked me up, and we spent ten minutes searching for parking (here's a hint for you if you need it in that area: 63rd and West End. ::taps nose:: ).

What a good decision. We loved the movie. Both of us. Heddy not only loved it, she was awake throughout, both of us being so thoroughly engaged by the film. We left the theater happy which is a big deal. It wasn't a Hollywood-happy movie, and things didn't all work out the way you kinda wished they would, and it didn't matter. It wasn't perfectly realistic, but it didn't bow to tradition or cliche. Dennis Quaid was fantastic. I can't remember what last I saw him in, but he's so great in this film. Topher Grace was good, too, and both were sympathetic even though they weren't perfect characters. Just loved it. It made you hopeful, even if it had an open-ended finale. Made me want to watch romantic comedies and laugh.

I think the best message was that you can admit you don't know what you want to do with your life and have that be okay. Crisis of the internal sort is best resolved sooner rather than later, but it's better than denying what you are, who you want to be. That really struck a chord with me.

Comments

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Aw, i liked In Good Company, too.

However, I can't figure out a word of what you're talking about in the paragraph with Christo and an artist and the Gates. What are ANY of those things? You never give any context to the stuff you write about. :P

[fairest.livejournal.com]

Background/translation: An artist called Christo, who specializes in very large-scale artwork, has set up a series of flamingly orange gates with flowing curtains throughout Central Park. They're everywhere, and orange, orange, orange.

I assume that Dayle and Lisa went to the unveiling of this artwork and encountered the artist himself strolling about in a publicity storm. Something happened with a camera and some girls and French gesturing, and Dayle took weird pictures. The end.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it's not something that one would know unless one lived next to the park or passed it a lot. Gotcha.

Dayyyyyyyle not everyone lives right in manhattan any more!

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Or watched the news, I suppose, since it seems to have gotten a reasonable amount of coverage. I mean, my friend in L.A. was just asking me about it on the phone tonight, but fortunately I was passing by the park last night so the sculptures had already been inflicted upon me. Fortunately, it was dark, so the hideous orange color was slightly muted, and really, things like that should be hidden under curtains, but what do you do when the curtains are ugly too?

I bet they're highly flammable. Now that would be art. If we could set them all alight in sequence...though that might endanger the trees. Let me think on this.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

So, I can only imagine that Christo designed these arch/curtain thingeys to match his wife's hair. Would you say the colors were comparable? It's a good thing I didn't run into the "artist," in the park, or he would have heard me mocking his effort. Lord, I hate modern art, but I love making fun of it. So I guess it serves a purpose.

Maybe someone will return your library book to the library. I think that's what I would do. Which reminds me that I really need to get a NYPL card--why does Queens have to have its own library system?! And I am very jealous of your book club choice. If our writing group ever got into the book club thing, The Time Traveler's Wife would have been my choice. Instead, it is relegated to sitting in my Amazon wishlist until I get around to it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I thought she would have dyed her hair for the event, not the other way around. You'd have been amazed at the number of people sporting orange paraphenalia. One woman had a great orange burka-like swath of cloth draped around her (by far my best picture, I think), one girl had a spunky/spiky orange hat, another a scarf, sweatshirts, and one kid wore a bright orange jacket (though Lisa and I suspect that was not in honor of the event but was in fact so his parents could find him since it was blaringly orange).

I actually really like the color. It definitely stands out, especially at this time of year. I don't love the color normally, but it enlivens the park. And the whole thing is a great excuse for one of the volunteers to stand on a rock with his curtain-fixing rod (with a tennis ball on one end) and shout, "I am the Lord of The Gates!"

Will get back to you on "The Time Traveler's Wife." Looks like we're in for a long read.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

I think if it were me I would wholeheartedly and sincerely *mean* to turn in the library book, and then forget. Because I'm a space cadet.

And yeah, I'm not seeing the big deal about the gates either. From the photos I've seen, it like somebody stole part of the Golden Gate Bridge (which I love, but not for its color) and scattered the wishbones all over the park...