I just saw Synecdoche, New York with my friend Allison and I have many thoughts and feelings about the film. I'm not going to get into them on this post, but I will say that I was reading other people's responses to the movie just now and I can't even understand what they are trying to say.
After the movie I went over to Barnes and Noble for a little browsing. I guess the movie affected me even more than I thought because everything seemed so fucked up and staged. Honestly I felt a little like I was on drugs. The best thing about feeling that way without actually being on drugs was the fact that I could observe the weirdness and feel a little freaked out about it without actually getting too scared and panicking.
Cases in point:
As I walk up to the door, a man rushes out holding an infant carrier in one hand and pulling a screaming toddler with the other. He looks at me pleadingly for a second too long and gives me the willies.
When I get inside, the first thing I see is Extremely Tall and Skinny Man with Coke Bottle Glasses and a Stringy Black Skullet. His black t-shirt and black jeans are faded almost to gray and he is walking a few paces in each direction looking frantically for something. He seems sinister somehow and I give him wide berth.
At this point I am becoming aware of the weird vibe and know it is from the movie. I go with it and think, "This could be an elaborate set and I am the only audience member."
I turn the corner and bump into a girl walking swiftly toward the escalator. Behind her is a small older Korean woman I assume to be her grandmother. And she appears to have no arms. Armless Korean Grandmother, of course! I sneak back around the displays and upon a second look I see that she has clasped her hands behind her back and draped her cardigan over her shoulders so that the sweater arms hang limply over her hidden ones.
I start to wonder if maybe I should be taking notes and search in my purse for a notebook, which I don't find. I head back to look through the memoir section and they have moved it since I was last there which confuses me. I wonder if the set director could possibly have made this big of a mistake and the thought causes me to feel a little bit cross-eyed, like the time in high school where a guy gave me some pills of his mothers that didn't make me feel messed up but made my eyes cross unless I smacked myself on the side of the head.
I start to browse at the table in the middle with games on either side. I watch the Sullen High School Girl Working at Bookstore and think she is overdoing it a bit. Hair pseudo-haphazardly pinned up with about twenty clips, black argyle kneesocks and clunky black shoes. Short bangs and a thick layer of burgundy lipstick...you know the type. Next year at this time there will be a lip ring right in the center of her pouty lower lip.
My attention back on the games, I am joined by Teenage Couple. She is a small, spunky Asian girl and he is a tall, pimply white boy. He is hunched over and I am not sure whether it is his normal posture or whether it is so that he can comfortably keep his hand in the back pocket of her jeans. She starts to read to him from the back of a game that has something to do with seeing how dirty your mind may be. "I can only get laid once. The question is whether I came first." She cuts her eyes at him and blushes as she reads and even though the answer is horribly obvious he clears his throat and blushes back, mumbling, "I don't know." She presses him for a guess, putting her hand up on his chest and he shuffles his feet and coughs some more. All this with his hand still securely in her pocket.
I walk around the fiction section for a minute and notice how the hushed chatter and soft laughter totally seems piped in over the speakers. People seem to start talking when I get close and stop when I walk away.
Riding up the escalator, I wonder if I am supposed to notice the musical ch-ch-chhhh ch-ch-chhhh of the stairs. It is way quieter upstairs and straight ahead all four seats are full of the people who always seem to get the good chairs. Three people not even reading but staring off into space and one person sleeping. All three of the awake people seem to be staring at the same point in the center of the square of chairs, which seems especially strange.
I notice a tall, busty red-headed lady browsing in psychology and decide to spy on her. She is Woman Browsing Self Help Section. So cliche. She's middle-aged, pretty under too much makeup, wearing a pink sweater that clashes terribly with her overly orange dyed hair. She is ever so slightly pudgy and tugs at her trousers after lifting up on tiptoe to see a title. I can't tell whether she gives off a meek vibe or whether I am putting that mojo on her myself.
I head around the shelf to the craft section and bump into Nerdy College Guy Working in Bookstore. I knock a book off the cart he is pushing and he actually says "Argh." I apologize but he just pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at the floor before squeaking away, his badge clanging against the cart.
Over in the craft section I start to notice Loud Talking Asshole Guys somewhere out of my sight. The first thing I pick up on is, "Just like that Prop 8 bullshit in Cali." Guy 2 remarks, "Isn't it so awesome how that worked out? They totally thought they had it - that all the African Americans and minorities who voted for Obama would be on their side. But they got fucked - haha!"
Now I get up off the floor and move to the other side of the aisle so I can see them. I have the feeling that they can't actually see me, so I openly stare. One guy is standing, untucked button-down shirt with open collar sticking out from his blazer jacket. Her has trendy glasses and one of those spiky hairdos meant to distract from male pattern hair loss. The second man is short, sits with his ass on a display (pushing books all out of whack) and wears those god-awful leather mules that some men think look good. Black hair sprouts out of all his toe-knuckles and his toenails are almost perfectly half-yellow - like nail fungus finally cured and growing out or perhaps red nail polish left on too long. I lose interest in what they are saying once they move on to the how's business part of the conversation and all I hear is the inappropriate volume of their exchange.
Once I'm outside I stand for awhile looking in the windows at people. When it's dark outside it really does seem staged. Since you walk down stairs to go in, the view from outside the glass lets you see within each row - above the stage. People seem even more animated without sound. Two old ladies make HUGE amazed faces at each other, laugh, and sock each other on the arms. A man talks to a woman while she looks at a book on the shelf, completely ignoring him. Outcast Teenager sits on the floor in the graphic novel section with white earbuds in, furiously sketching what I can see (from my vantage point) are Manga girls with large breasts, wet eyes, and tiny waists - the exact opposite of her.
The light given off by streetlights always seems weird to me but walking to my car felt so strange that I started to think I was walking funny...what should I do with my arms?
When I got home I tried explaining this all to Tim but I don't think it made tons of sense, as I'm sure it doesn't here, either.
Weird movie, weird night. But both were fun.
***Please excuse my punctuation - I am too tired to go back and check it...***
Sneak Peek of First Look
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