Vengeance is Mine (1979)

Last summer I bought a pair of black flip-flops.

A few days after my purchase, the bus stopped suddenly, and as I fell forward, the force of my right foot pulled the middle strap from its hole. I pushed it back in but had to walk very carefully to prevent the strap from pulling out again because the rubber sole had a tear where the knob punched through. The more I walked, the more frequently it fell apart until I had to limp with one foot bare home.

In my apartment, I tried to repair the tear by sticking a wad of duct tape into it. For a four block trip to the grocery store this seemed to work, but on the way back, as I ran across Colfax, flip-flop flew off.

Next I stretched a wide strip of tape over the opening in the outsole, thinking the knob would stick to it. Cautiously I crept toward the library, gaining confidence with each step, but soon enough, my confidence collapsed.

What about adding a staple? One from the top and one from the bottom, I snapped them through squishy shaft. For several weeks I went boldly forward, a little metal pinch in the ball of my toe an adaptable irritant, my only precaution not venturing beyond a mile from home.

One day, without warning, the grip slips, plug from socket.

Final plan, last chance: duct tape sandwich. Scrub sole clean to prepare for solid binding. Make slice in small piece of tape and press plug through, tacky surface down. Place two large pieces, tacky surface up, wide enough to cover downward facing piece and attach to surrounding sole. Add a couple staples for extra security.

Silver vinyl folding, bunching, sliding exposes flap like a bothersome long toenail that I clip. Months later, a clump of sand-straw-clay, the surface of a Saskatchewan sod hut, has formed a seemingly unbreakable glue.

The Cyclist (1987)

In January 1998, Le Nouvel Observateur asked former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski whether he regretted funding Afghan rebels--future Taliban--priming the Soviets for a disastrous invasion.

His answer: Regretter quoi? Cette opération secrète était une excellente idée. Elle a eu pour effet d'attirer les Russes dans le piège afghan et vous voulez que je le regrette ? Le jour où les Soviétiques ont officiellement franchi la frontière, j'ai écrit au président Carter, en substance : “Nous avons maintenant l'occasion de donner à l'URSS sa guerre du Vietnam.” De fait, Moscou a dû mener pendant presque dix ans une guerre insupportable pour le régime, un conflit qui a entraîné la démoralisation et finalement l'éclatement de l'empire soviétique.

Asked about this response in Our Own Private Bin Laden Brzezinski affirms, "Compared to the Soviet Union and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

Must toothpicks pin open eyes, buckets of water dowse hand slapped cheeks for us to see Afghans as toys in circular colonial death games?

We are weary. Comfort us with laughter at Carell's 40-year-old bicyclist. Confirm our normalcy in the toxic shadowed mist of motordom's profligacy.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

Not quite Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes but, to paraphrase Babe, "It'll do pig. It'll do."

Los Tres Huastecos (1948)

      PADRE
No juegues, está amartillada, puede estar cargada.
      HIJA
Está. Defiéndete.
      PADRE
No me apuntes, dámela.
      HIJA
Quitamela, si eres macho.
(she shoots)
      PADRE
¡Hija!
      HIJA
¡Waaaah!
      PADRE
¿Porque lloras, es porque te asustaste?
      HIJA
(crying)
No, porque no te di.

Exactly. Let the tears fly at the failure to gun down sexual discipline smacked upon girls--humiliation through chivalry's bloated subterfuge.

As in the Roman soldiers' rape of Sabine women, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, favorite film of grandmother (who always wore dresses), brutes stuff girls in burlap sacks for pacification via Stockholm syndrome to delightful tunes and synchronized handstand log fence vaulting.

色戒 Lust, Caution's lesson to uppity young women: suffer penetration 'til your insides scream, be rewarded with one heckuva big shiny rock--preferably pink.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (2003)

'Tis the season of perverted pagan rituals, to be reminded,
"Lust awakens the desire to possess, and that awakens the intent to murder."

Possess a Samsung - 42" Class 720p Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV and Microsoft - Xbox 360 Pro Console, available at Best Buy now for just $899.98.

A season of giving, a season of taking.

With a large stone roped to our child's bust we step boldly before a blue Ford pickup speeding down Laurel Canyon, we slip quietly through a hole in ice covered White Bear Lake, we leap faithfully from a Bedford Falls bridge.

Recall indulging an old friend's addiction at the Triangle Bar, mimicking the stupor of Exile on 4th Street, watching "Torn and Frayed" shredded by Zuzu's Pedals--the souvenir laughing that after death comes a Wonderful Life.

The gravel baritone of Reverend Cleveland, gospel's tragic king, calls:
Say you gotta habit.
(everybody gotta habit).

A choir of evergreen cliffs responds:
Tell me about it.

Back leans into fingers painting grand colors into carved keys:
Man said, "I'm hooked! I'm hooked! Aaand--I--caaan't--get myself freeee!"

'Kerchief dabs, temple glistening:
(Shhhh)
Where is your faith?
Where--is--your--faaayyth
in God?

Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977)

The Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1931:

Divorce Over Tree Planting Held Invalid

Rudolph Fotsch, 73 years of age, who recently was given a divorce on his testimony that every time he planted a certain tree in his back yard his wife, Addie Belle Fotsch, 68, would change it, has no divorce today. His wife had the decree set aside yesterday by Superior Judge Edmonds on grounds of fraud.

Mrs. Fotsch, through her attorney, declared she did not contest the suit because her husband had informed her it was dismissed.

She also asserted that they had not separated last May 20, as set forth by her husband, but only two weeks ago.

July, 10, 1931:

Elderly Pair to Renew Divorce Battle Today

Mrs. Addie Belle Fotsch, 85 years of age, and her octogenarian husband, Rudolph Fotsch, are expected to meet again today in Superior Court for trial of their contested divorce suit.

Fotsch recently obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce on his testimony that every time he planted a certain tree in the back yard of their home his wife would move it. Mrs. Fotsch then came before Superior Judge Edmonds and had the decree set aside on the grounds that it was obtained by fraud.

The case is scheduled to be heard by Clarence J. Morley, one-time judge and Governor of Colorado, who has volunteered to serve as jurist to relieve congestion in the local courts.

February 4, 1936:

Deaths

FOTSCH. Mrs. Belle E. Fotsch, beloved wife of Rudolf Fotsch of 3028 East First street. Funeral services today at 1 p.m. from the chapel of W.A. Brown, 1815 South Flower street.

Nov 8, 1938

Deaths

FOTSCH. The funeral services of Rudolph Fotsch will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. from the chapel of W.A. Brown, 1815 South Flower street.

And so, a man from Halau, Switzerland, who left his first wife back in Muscatine for California in The Day of the Locust, is found by his great-grandson buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Boyle Heights with an unknown woman.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

In Persona Liv Ullmann holds a photo of a boy, frozen hands held level with capped head, soldier leveling rifle at back. The same photo found in Night and Fog precedes piled corpses bulldozed to burial pits.

This boy, now behind barbed wire, Shmuel--Prophet, Judge, Son of God--meets Bruno--son of SS soldier--in a light-hearted tale of mistaken identity at a death camp.

An allegory for our own mistaken identity, fictional self-representation: as Milton Mayer says of his Nazi friends, kleine Leute, ordinary Germans, "they thought they were free," and Mayer asks, "isn't this true of us all?"

It feels good feeding delectably soft pastries to comic strip Pig-Pen neighbors, dirt covered with rotting teeth, imagining our joys untraceable to their pains, sweets untinged by Zyklon B pellets.

And after we absorb the chill, the bite of our crime, our betrayal, what will we sacrifice to give a clasping hand in love, friendship?