Dear George,
Recently we saw “Lost in Paris” at the Esquire Theatre. It’s a French/Belgian comedy, written by, directed by, and starring Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel. They do a lot of physical comedy and slapstick, reminiscent of Jacques Tati, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin, among others. Both are tall, thin, and gawky, and their physical movements are a wonder to behold. Fiona encounters numerous crises, and Dom, a homeless Parisian wanderer, comes to her aid. Needless to say, the pair fall in love, and their unlikely romance survives despite many ups and downs. (If you do a YouTube search on “Fiona Gordon”, you’ll get trailers, interviews, and other short films.).
We were so taken with Fiona and Dom that we got their three earlier movies on DVD from the library (L’Iceberg, Rumba, and The Fairy). All have the same quirky, occasionally tragic, but largely bemused view of life. Every minor thing they do is spell-binding —running down the street, pouring a cup of coffee, talking on the phone. I find myself thinking regularly about the Fiona and Dom movies. They’ve definitely made me more aware of the oddities and delights of the world around us. The main characters are typically lost, befuddled, or derailed by unanticipated happenings. Though life is filled with perplexities, Fiona and Dom always discover ways to muddle through. Once you adopt their perspective, everyday events take on a quaint, mildly bizarre flavor. Here are a few Fiona/Dom-like examples that we’ve personally experienced in recent weeks.
At the Boone County Fair Katja and I decided to ride on a ferris wheel for the first time in years. The gondolas were arranged in pairs, each facing the other, about six feet apart. We sat down in one gondola, and a sixtyish man and a teenage girl, probably his granddaughter, sat down in the gondola directly in front of us. Up we went, around and around, enjoying the view with the grandfather and granddaughter. After a few minutes the ferris wheel came to a stop, then proceeded backwards in the opposite direction. Much to our astonishment, our two neighbors suddenly vanished. The gondola facing us was completely empty. We looked all in all directions — our companions were nowhere to be seen. Then the ferris wheel reversed course again, and our two fellow riders instantaneously reappeared. I still can’t figure it out. I can only think it was some kind of mystical ferris wheel which took riders away to alternate universes.
A few days after the fair we were driving east on MLK Jr. Drive in Cincinnati to take the brand new entrance onto I-71 North. We stopped at a traffic light at the I-71 entrance with six cars in front of us, all waiting to make a lefthand turn onto the ramp. The light changed, the first car turned onto the ramp, the second car, etc., and finally us. As I travelled down the short roadway toward the expressway, I noticed that all the painted arrows on the road were pointing back at me. I wondered, “How could they make such a stupid mistake?” Then it dawned that we weren’t on the entrance to the interstate — we were headed the wrong way down the interstate’s exit ramp. Of course that meant that exiting cars could come directly at us any moment at 60 miles per hour. Two cars behind me stopped to turn around, I turned around too, and so did the cars in front of me. While I’ve made occasional mistakes about one-way streets over the years, I’ve never done so as part of a whole convoy of vehicles. I could only think of lemmings following the leader and leaping off the cliff.
All in all, there’s a lot more confusion in the world than I remember from younger days. I was the first person at my Zumba class a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye a tall person entering behind me with fluorescent pink, purple, and orange hair, wearing capri pants with a colorful floral design. I took it to be the tall woman that I’d seen at the last class. I nodded, mumbled “hello”, and stepped back into the hallway to wait for the instructor’s arrival. A few more people arrived, and then the music started. I looked in the doorway, and the instructor had already begun leading the class. He had fluorescent pink, purple, and orange hair and was wearing Capri pants.
It’s easy to get mixed up about people’s identities. I woke at 2:30 a.m. the other night, got up and took half an Ambien, and sat down at the computer to while away the time before the pill took effect. I thought I heard a soft clinking sound from downstairs, perhaps someone were opening a drawer. I stopped and listened, but everything was silent. Then, a couple of minutes later, I heard what could have been a footstep. I thought back to years ago when we had a night-time burglar who actually came upstairs and was right outside our bedroom door. The police detective came to our house and recommended that we buy a gun, but that struck me as an over-reaction. Now I sort of wished I’d listened to him. Totally nervous, I turned on some music on the computer to scare the intruder away. Then I started clapping my hands loudly in time with the music. After a few seconds I heard someone call my name. It was Katja. She was downstairs making a tuna fish salad sandwich.
Katja and I went to see the hippos at the zoo. Baby Fiona wasn’t out, but her parents Bibi and Henry were, and they were very playful. As we were leaving, I heard Katja ask a zoo staff member when Fiona would next be out with her parents, and the person said it would be five days. As we were driving out, I said, “Five days is a long time to wait.” Katja didn’t know what I was talking about. When I repeated what I’d heard, Katja explained that she had asked the staffer when Fiona would be as big as her parents, and the zoo person had said five years. Katja suggested that in the future I might want to double-check what it is that I think that I hear.
While we’ve both had a healthy summer, Katja got a prescription for Zovirex from her doctor for a cold sore on her lip. I’d used Zovirex for many years because of stress symptoms I’d get from my first day of Autumn teaching. I was astonished to discover that Katja had paid $98 for a 5-ounce tube, about ten times more than I’d ever paid. And then I was more flabbergasted to learn that the insurance company had contributed an additional $2000. $2,098 to treat a cold sore? What is the doctor thinking, not to mention the insurance company and the consumer? I investigated on the Internet and found that a tube of Zovirex ointment costs about $20 in Canada and $20 in Great Britain, but up to $2500 in the U.S. I turns out that the other countries, unlike the U.S., have laws regulating exorbitant drug prices. Katja later observed that, for all its cost, the ointment didn’t work. A friend suggested holding an ice cube to one’s lip instead. We’ll definitely try that next time.
When it came time to pick a restaurant for our 57th wedding anniversary, Katja suggested
“Knotty Pine on the Bayou” in Cold Springs, Kentucky. That sounded very folksy to me, but unfortunately they were closed on Mondays. So then Katja suggested Longhorn Steakhouse because they have Bloomin’ Onions on their menu. Bloomin’ Onions would make for an excellent anniversary celebration. Katja used to pick five-star restaurants like the Maisonette for our anniversaries, but her criteria have changed in mysterious ways.
We are scheduled to go on a Caribbean cruise with J and K and our grandkids in November, and I learned that I would need a passport to go onshore in Mexico. According to the Internet, I could either get a passport card or a passport book. The passport card costs $55, is a convenient wallet size, and is good for land or sea travel to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Canada (but not for international air flights). The passport book is $110, larger and less convenient (not wallet size), but good for all international travel around the world. I told Katja about the distinction and said I’d decided to get a passport card. She replied I should get the passport book. When I insisted on the card, Katja was hurt and angry. Neither of us chose to verbalize the real issue at hand. Namely, Katja is extremely eager to do some European traveling together, and I don’t want to do it. In the interests of a pleasant Caribbean trip, I applied for a passport book for $110.
Even though it’s been two years, we are still suffering the loss of our sheepdogs. One byproduct of dog ownership is that I spent a lot of time out on the street and had more frequent social contact with people from the neighborhood. One of those regulars was a sixtysomething man who regularly walked his three Weimaraners on Ludlow Ave. Because we both had big and somewhat unreliable dogs, we always stayed on opposite sides of the street, although I did develop a sense of kinship with him as a fellow dog-guy over the years. Needless to say, I was surprised to see his picture in the newspaper last week as having been arrested for possessing child pornography. I can’t imagine a loving Weimaraner owner also being a pedophile. I guess dog owners have their secrets like everybody else.
My overall conclusion is that life is pretty much like a Fiona/Dom movie — filled with mishaps, incongruities, and mysteries of various sorts. Their films simply exaggerate the absurdities to bring them to our attention, but we connect with them so readily because of their basic truth value. Our task, as I see it, is to take it all in, go with the flow, and be as amused as we’re can. That’s what I’m working on.
Love,
Dave
