Entries

Let’s flip a coin. (part 2)

Submitted entry: So don’t tell Sage, but though she thinks she got the last laugh the night I went out to see Napoleon Dynamite, it isn’t entirely the case. In fact, I think it was nothing but a good thing that I found a terrible movie to watch Sunday night. Had I chosen something good like Control Room (which I actually saw on Friday night) I would have stayed in the theatre and missed what turned out to be an absolutely wonderful night.

Of course Sage is right, the first part of it started out positively horrendously (as one-person movie date nights go). After arriving for the movie, I headed for the popcorn counter and ordered a medium popcorn which appeared to be about the size of a bag of microwave popcorn. Instead, though, the new server (I know he’s new because he was being trained in the cappucino bar on Friday) charged me for a medium but brought me a bag of popcorn about the size of my two cupped hands. I should have taken this as a sign - a sort of covert message that said “They’re making me wear this Napoleon Dynamite T-Shirt but I’ve seen it - you’ll only stay long enough to eat this much popcorn.”

If that wasn’t message enough, I got the picture when I walked in the door. I found the room filled with irritating alterna-teens. The kind who pretend to be social outcasts but have just managed to create another social group to make others feel cast out from. The remainder of the audience were characters destined for a Russell Smith novel had they not been so irritating that he couldn’t bear to put pen to paper while thinking of them. Fortunately I arrived late enough that all I had time to listen to was someone admiring someone else’s stretched-piercing before the lights dimmed and the movie started.

The movie, sadly, doesn’t deserve a plot summary as that would imply a plot. Still, it didn’t stop people from laughing at parts of the movie I totally failed to see any humour in. I couldn’t even understand it academically lilke I could the few bits of “Dumb and Dumber” I saw. After 25 minutes I gave up on it. I was not going to waste another hour waiting for something funny or interesting to happen.

Anyway - I packed my bag and headed out the door and headed south on Yonge street. Within the minutes I found the world to be far more interesting than I ever expected the movie to be.

As I walked past the adult theatre just north of Dundas (the one across from the head shop) I watched a conservative-looking couple walk up to the theatre, and start checking out the posters obviously deciding what movie to see. I guess I never imagined any couple - let alone a conservative one going to an adult theatre. Aren’t the only patrons 50-70 year old men? Oh, and Paul Reubens, I suppose. As far as I’m concerned any choice they made would be a better one than the movie choice I had made earlier that evening.

Farther down the block, I came to a 50-something homeless woman who asked me for some change. Despite my obvious desire to give her something (I reached in my pocket as soon as I saw the people ahead of me turn her down), she still made something of a pitch - she was living in a shelter, she wanted a coffee and a muffin, and her mom was dying. It wasn’t until later that I thought that I really need to slow down a bit when it comes to the homeless people. I generally try to give my money and move as fast as I can. What I originally took as a “sales pitch” trying to convince me that I should part with my money could just as easily have been an attempt to find someone to listen. I also thought afterwards that it would have been interesting to have stopped and chatted a bit. And a less charitable part of me thought that recording an “interview” in my palm pilot would make for an interesting addition to the site.

By the time I got to Dundas Square it was getting fairly late - almost 8:00. Whatever event had been held there earlier in the day was ending. Cars were pulled up and sellers were packing them with their wares - jewelery, african art, henna tattoo supplies. Meanwhile, nearer Yonge street, by the splash pad (a series of fountains designed to allow people to cool off in their spray), a group of men in their early 20’s laughing and speaking Portuguese tried to wrestle each other into the spray.

South of Dundas the buildings get bigger. The appearance, however, is different. It really seems as if the buildings remain the same size while the street goes further into the earth. By the time I got to King street, it was nearly dark at the street level while the tops of the buildings were turning orange with the sunset. As if knowing that night was coming, the traffic thinned out enough that a particularly reckless rollerblader could slalom from one side to the street to the other - all the time with his headphones on.

Before long the streetcar arrived and I climbed aboard to head for Chinatown East. More filming was planned near there for the weekend and I was curious to see the set and props. By the time I got to the bridge over the Don River, the sun was almost down. The river itself was still as glass and reflected the sky back at me. By the time I thought to get off and take a picture, though, it was too late - we were too far away and I’d miss the sunset. At Queen and Broadview I only quickly looked down the street and didn’t see any sign of filming. I’m sorry I didn’t look harder since as we later found out, and as Sage will likely tell about in another entry what we found there was quite something.

Arriving in Chinatown I headed immediately for the Cambodian restaurant that I’d walked past a few weeks ago after having had a disappointing meal somewhere else. Even at 8:45, they were still open though I ended up being the only customer. I don’t know whether it was the late hour, the dim lighting, or the fact that the owners were watching Alien vs. Predator on the TV but it felt almost too intimate - like I was a guest in their house that they felt obligated to take in but that they’d much rather be left alone. That said, it still felt cozy and comfortable in a way I can’t quite describe.

After a dinner of ginger tofu and rice - nothing to write home about but still quite tasty - I hopped on a streetcar and headed, in a very roundabout way, for home. The streetcar took me along Gerrard through little India where people where the streets were still quite busy with shoppers, people out for evening walks, and vendors selling everything from roasted corn (with chili & lime) to Pani Puri to cookware. The air, as I rode through, smelled green and summery much like the air in the Ozarks smelled this time of year. The difference, though, was that the air was also filled with the cooking smells of several different countries as we went by different houses.

Finally the streetcar arrived at the subway station. I put my walkman back on and boarded the subway. As the subway accellerated towards home, a somewhat beery smelling father and son sat across from me. Dad was in his early 70’s, and his son was in his late 40’s or early 50’s. The son wore a jacket that said “The Duke of York - Darts 1994 - 1995″. Neither of them spoke but there seemed to be a closeness between them. The dad leaned against the son while the son had his arm around his dad though he tried to look as if he had it on the back of the seat. As I watched them, I thought about how quickly the past 33 years have passed - and how quickly the tables will turn - where we’re taking care of and feeling protective of Paul now, there will come a time when that relationship will reverse. It wasn’t so difficult to imagine myself 40 years from now riding the subwary with Paul in much the same way.

So the trip was not in vain, Napoleon Dynamite was a great movie to have gone to see. It has me somewhat inspired to go to see a terrible movie every Sunday night if only for the experience of what comes after. Maybe I’ll save my $10.00 though and just go for a walk.

You made my dog bite you!

Memories of Butter