Film, Friends and French

Tonight Pygmy and I went to see the second free film in a group of coupons that arrived in the mail last week. My friend Jen had connected us with the sister marketing firm of her company in Seattle. After a month of not receiving a single free pass, I got four in a row and it’s been fun! Pygmy and I meet up after work, grabbing granola bars, apples or pop corn to munch before the 7 p.m. show. (We’ve seen Failure to Launch and Tsotsi) It’s been a great time for us to catch up, wonderful… except for the part where Seattleites LOVE free stuff so they come out early in great numbers so when we get there an hour before hand we’re 159th in line and tonight we were outside, wound around the theater when the sky opened up and rained heavily on us for 10 minutes before bidding us a good evening.

The Cleveland International Film Festival starts tomorrow. Over the weekend, I was having one of those moments where I felt so horribly homesick. Because, being on the Short Film Selection Committee was the greatest volunteer gig (except Peace Corps if that counts) I’ve ever been privy to. I wasn’t in charge of anything; I wasn’t an officer or held any leadership role. My job was to pick up a box of movies, watch them ALL the way thru, give them a score of 1 – 3, write comments (I can be wordy), turn in the finished box and get a new one. It occupied my Monday nights in October, November and December. It was fantastic! I was somewhat qualified. I could argue movies! And for all of this work of watching a hundred usually-really-bad-but-every-so-often-a-gem films, I receive two (almost) all access passes to watch as many films as I wanted during the festival (last year I squeezed in 29 films). I enjoyed this honor for three years. And this year is the festivals 30th birthday. 30 is a great year – but I’m really glad to have been a part of 27, 28, and 29. Happy Birthday! Someone buy Bill, Tammy, Patrick or Jen a martini for me.

I can easily claim that I speak French fluently. (I probably could only write it to save my life, but those situations don’t come up so much anymore). Yesterday I was helping a colleague who was being interviewed by another organization for a fellowship in French speaking Africa. Sitting at one of the tables in our staff kitchen (which looks out onto Mount Rainier), I asked her questions in West African French. We chatted quietly for about 40 minutes unintentionally impressing everyone who swept thru the kitchen during that time.

Yesterday at the library, I picked up Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, which has many amusing essays, including those from his years of living in France. A friend told me it wasn’t as good as Naked plus I had heard David read from it on NPR so between his voice and the poor recommendation, I didn’t pick it up - until yesterday. I laughed on the bus on my way to work, to the film and then home after it. I came to realize that my friend probably didn’t like it because he didn’t speak French, or any language for that matter and didn’t get how absurd it was to arrange a meeting with city officials when you sound like a 5 year old. (I can’t, at this time, even go into all the times I’ve said the wrong thing, stupid things, or just made it up – but I may one day). But let me just quote the part where David Sedaris is taking a French class, in Paris, and they’re trying to describe “Excuse me, but what is an Easter” to a Muslim woman:
The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.
The Poles lead the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and… oh, shit.” She faltered and her fellow country man came to her aid.
“He call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two… morsels of …lumber.”
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
“He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”
“He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he back here to say hello to the peoples.”
“He nice, the Jesus.”
“He make the good things, and one the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.”
Part of the problem had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as “to give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.