It's been a while since my last column, and I'm not sure what I've been doing.
I saw Nicole Kidman filming a movie. I think that was The Event of the past month. Although the event itself wasn't nearly as exciting as getting to tell everybody about the event.
My boyfriend and I were on our way to see Kill Bill Vol. 2 (awesome), however, it was opening night and we had not yet purchased tickets. Of course it was sold out. On our way to the movie theater we passed by an area where there were giant cranes with lights on them and stuff. It was apparent that, not only were they filming a movie, it had to be Hollywood. After we got turned away from the movie theater, we decided to wander around the movie filming area. We walked by a guy who was associated with the movie, and my boyfriend found out that they were filming The Interpreter with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman. Then we walked by a spot where there was a bunch of people standing around so we stood around with them. Then I saw a blonde woman in a trench coat walking around. I said, "Look, is that Nicole Kidman?" And it was Nicole Kidman.
Then a movie girl came over to our crowd and said "Okay, you guys can stay here for now, but you have to be really, really quiet, okay?" She walked away and we got to see Nicole Kidman walk down the sidewalk for one minute with a black man following her. Then they shot the same scene again. Then a really gay movie guy came over and said "Okay guys, after this shot, we're going to have to ask you to move back to that corner over there, okay, you're going to have to move back to that corner over there. Please be good about this, we don't want to have to bring the police in. Okay, can everybody here me?" Then Nicole Kidman walked down the street for one minute with a black man following her.
"Let's go," I said.
The following night we went back and made it in to see Kill Bill but got turned away afterward when we stopped to try to watch the movie filming.
This weekend my brother was visiting. Today we went to Tompkins Square Park and were wandering around quite a bit. I told him about the old man I met before, as described in a previous column, and how his parting words to me were "I'll see you again in the park..." I am now afraid every time that I go he will be there and want to talk to me again. I have made it a point whenever I go now to stay away from the corner of the park where I met him. As my brother and I made our rounds of the park, sure enough there was my buddy sitting over in that same area. The first time we walked by he was alone, but we walked by again later and he had found another young person to rant to. I was careful not to make eye contact so that he wouldn't recognize me.
We spent a long time sitting in the park but I was disappointed because my brother didn't get to see the Dominican Parade. Every time I've sat in the park for a while, I've seen this small parade go by. It's just three guys on bicycles decked out with flags (Dominican Republic) and horns, with a large boom box playing crazy music. They ride through the park with the music blaring and honking their little bicycle horns. They don't make eye contact and they don't smile. The first time it happened I thought that some sort of special festival must have been happening that day, but I've seen them a couple times since then. Today we did not see them. We did, however, see a black kid wearing fuzzy mouse ears and a tail. Not sure what he was all about.
On Saturday my brother and I Walked. We started from my apartment, and ended up following the East River all the way down into the Financial District. Then we visited all of the tourist spots. The South Street Seaport, NY Stock Exchange, World Trade Center site, Chinatown. There's something wonderfully refreshing about being a tourist in your own city. There's also something incredibly fulfilling about spending an entire afternoon Walking, with no destination and no end until eventually you are back where you started and there is so much behind you.
I recently read my first Ayn Rand book, see We the Living. I really liked it, in a way that I wasn't expecting to like it. It left me feeling depressed, with this sort of stillness inside of me, that I haven't quite been able to shake.
At my work recently they have started a Lending Library, where they encourage us to bring in books that we would like to share with our fellow employees. A kid at my work who I have never met sent out an email to everybody listing all the books that he had brought in for the library. One of the books was Anthem, by Ayn Rand. I replied to his email asking him if Anthem was depressing and telling him I had just read We the Living and found it depressing.
He flipped out. He gave me this whole spiel about her books being magnificent portrayals of what happens when your life is nationalized by the state. I persisted by writing back and explaining that I wasn't criticizing the book, that I found it quite effective, but that it did have a depressing effect. He replied, "Well what did you expect, that they would be happy living under oppression?" I gave up.
