Yesterday was ostensibly my day off, by which I mean it was the day I tried to tackle eight million longstanding projects. At about 11AM I headed off to Pittsfield, a city in the middle of Berkshire County, as well as the county seat. My destination was the Atheneum (aka the Library); specifically the local history room where I hoped to find information about a local distillery that transformed Caribbean slave sugar into rum. My other blog will provide details about the sinewy threads of research I had to follow.
Suffice to say that it was a day out. I tried locating exactly where this distillery was; the librarians had given me information as to landmarks. Either way I was able to get away from the teeming masses currently occupying my parent's house. I love my family, but there is a distinct lack of privacy and ability to recharge my batteries at the moment between my parents, my in-laws and my nieces and nephews.
I pulled into the driveway at about 6PM, just in time to hear the shrill screams of young children. I winced, bracing myself for the onslaught of good cheer and attempting to fix my face in a mask of open affability. Tonight's dinner menu was pizza, and my mother was firmly reminding my father that he had to go pick up a pie for the kids. I immediately jumped on the opportunity to leave for a bit and have more "me time" (to use an incredibly precious phrase). I drove up rte 7 towards Vermont to the Cozy Kitchen, a greasy spoon type restaurant and bar attacked to a small Motel. As I waited to pick up my pie my ears slowly tuned out the conversation and picked up the music rotation. To my surprise (and slight dismay) I was able to pick out Sigur Ros' "Staralfur," perhaps best known from the jaguar shark scene from Steve Zissou. Part of me chuckled internally; this song was left out of my list of songs which make me pull my car over but definitely deserves to be on it.
I barely managed to make it out of the restaurant and to my car, pizza burning holes in my arms. I shut the door and let my body be racked by tearless sobs. I wish I could say that memories flooded my head but all I saw was blackness and ambivalence. Flooring it, I headed home to chaos and exhaustion.
Ahh...the cursed song that steals a tear every time. I still find that scene in the movie so amazing. It takes a mind and creative genius like Wes Anderson to create something that, by all standards, should evoke amusement . The special effects are purposely amateur looking. The entire cast of characters played by some titans in the acting field, all packed like sardines into an impossibly operating sumbersible and delivering short lines in an almost deadpan style. It's all so absurd. Yet, like a lot of what Wes Anderson does by using color palettes in creative ways, the placement and movement of the camera, all of it, evokes something elemental, nostalgic, almost childlike. You're completely under his spell as he unleashes one of his strongest gifts: his choice of music in his films. Sigur Ros begins and swells, and I'll be damned if I'm not crying right along with Bill Murray's Steve Zissou. Simple Brilliance.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm here to let it strike again...this time in Technicolor!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPMf8G8Pi5o