sunnyside up!

(leave your worries on the doorstep)

memories: you’re talking about memories.

Walking around in a bit of a haze this morning.

I couldn’t sleep last night, and ended up watching Blade Runner on cable.  I have always loved this movie.  To me, the atmosphere of 2019 Los Angeles feels right: the weird climate (always raining, smog-filtered sun barely able to shine down through the ridiculously tall buildings and dense air traffic), the ethnic mix of Latino and Asian folks dominating the dirty and overcrowded L.A. streets, the incredible shoddiness and decrepitude of everything.  Despite all the amazing technologies on display in storefront cloning labs, L.A. still looks like a shithole.

The film is not about memory, but memories do figure into the plot.  Deckert, the blade runner (played by Harrison Ford) must identify and destroy some runaway replicants manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation.  The newest model replicants are implanted with memories which make them unaware of the truth of what they are.

Between Blade Runner – which is so depressing and fatalistic on so many levels — and the film I sat through earlier in the evening, Elia Kazan’s East of Eden, by 2:30 a.m. I found myself emotionally drained and yet all on edge at the same time. I could not stop crying and as a result I became all stuffy nosed and plain miserable.

If you haven’t seen it, East of Eden centers around an angst-ridden teenager (played by James Dean) trying to win his cold father’s approval and coming to terms with his mother’s being a big-time whorehouse operator.  Given the complicated developments surrounding my own family, this was probably not the best thing for me to be watching.  Chasing it with a midnight dose of Blade Runner was certainly a mistake.

It was 3 am before I decided to take one of the Lunesta I have stashed, and it was 3:30 before I could feel it taking affect.  I woke up this morning at 7:30 and I know that is not enough sleep when you’ve taken a pill.

I’m starting to realize that a lot of what I’m feeling must have to do with the fact that I’ll be an empty-nester soon.  So, maybe a few crying jags and a few sleepless nights are to be expected.  I will work on better ways to deal with it than staying up all night watching movies that make you question your existence, your humanity and your parental integrity.  I will certainly not make taking a sleeping pill a habit (note to self: more yoga).

Even if I’ve been dealing with things badly lately, I know for sure I’m dealing with them better than that certain someone who finds it necessary to start all over again with another child.

it walked with its arms swinging

Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke

When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

(read the whole poem here)

This poem is recited in one of my all-time favorite movies, Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire.  Bittersweet and beautiful.

i got my job through the new york times

Subject: “I Got My Job Through The New York Times”
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:44:26 -0400
To: photosales@nytimes.com

Hello. I’m not sure that photo reprints is the right department, but I need to start somewhere. Perhaps you can direct me to the proper party.

My mother appeared in one of those subway poster advertisements that ran through the 60s and 70s — “I Got My Job Through The New York Times.” I am trying to locate a copy of either the poster or the photograph. Maybe you know of the agency responsible for producing the ads?

I used to see my mom’s face, larger than life, with her teeth blacked in or a moustache painted on. These are my earliest memories of riding the #7 train in and out of Manhattan, back when my mom’s Filipino face was the exception and not the norm in places like Flushing. I also remember buying Chiclets from the vending machines on the platforms. That’s where I first tasted wintergreen mint.

Anyway, I’m rambling. If you have any suggestions about where I might begin my search please let me know.

Thank you for your attention and assistance.

***********

More subway ad faces:

This one courtesy Ken Mondschein in his “Subway Ads, Deconstructed” [link rotted]: the nefarious Dr. Z, who wants to put acid on your face!

Here’s one from Global Graphica and two more from Romiphoto.

on time traveling

One of the things I’ll be grappling with here on Sunnyside Up! is my experimentation with — and on-going attempt to understand — the notion of time travel, which I am 100% sure is possible. I am sure it’s possible because I’ve done it. It’s not like you see in the movies where you need a special vehicle or device to get your there. It happens with a shift of consciousness, a slip into a certain state of mind that allows you to be in the same place but in a different time. I can not make it happen at will, but I am getting better at setting up the circumstances for it to occur on its own.

Slipping into the past or into the future are both possible, but it’s harder to recognize when you’re in the future because you have no frame of reference for what you’re seeing since to your conscious self it hasn’t happened yet. For me, I’m only starting to realize that I’m time traveling at all and I feel both lucky to finally recognize it for what it is, plus bothered by the fact that I’ve only learned about it now as a middle-aged person. Had I realized it earlier, I might have put some effort into developing the skill.

Anyway, now that I know what it is I do a lot of time traveling: at lunchtime, in lower Manhattan, and on the weekends, when I go for long walks in northwestern Queens. I don’t really even think about the mechanics of it anymore. I leave that to the physicists and geniuses.

Of course, I love to read and watch movies that involve time travel, and one of my favorites is Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée, which many people know in it’s expanded, reincarnated, feature-length form as 12 Monkeys. An homage to La Jetée in the form of interactive Shockwave can be found here. Pretty cool.