THAT DAY

I just saw Woody Allen's new film BLUE JASMINE. Some reviewers caught its false view of class, but they missed the equally false view of San Francisco culture & politics. Maybe it takes a local like me to see it:

Woody Allen treats the City as a flat scenic backdrop for characters with no goals but love and money. No art, no politics, no spirituality. Where are their dreams? The City's a refugee camp for queers fleeing that two-dimensional America--not only sexual queerdom but economic, artistic, political and spiritual queerdom too. But Woody's characters seem mainstream in the two dimensions they care about and blind to the others. They talk like Brooklyn but act like Lubbock. Except Jasmine--and her pill-popping alcoholism might get overlooked in Lubbock but not in San Francisco. She'd get called on it.

After the film, I get on with my own dreams. Literally. I'm sewing giant sculptures of my dreams. A life-size leopard-dappled catgirl, and a Five-Hearted Unicorn with a mirror and a rose on her brow, instead of the usual horn...

THAT NIGHT

A film festival shows an action movie from 1925--groundbreaking for its era. Or was it? The date's flashed fast in Latin numerals and looks wrong. Maybe it's a mock/retro film. Soon, no maybe. It is fake. The second or third scene's in color!

The camera ogles three modern highschool girls, two in short red skirts, one in tight red shorts, as they march in step--the squad that owns their school. Lots of thigh and crotch as they demonstrate martial arts kicks. On a new girl. Thugs!

All I can think is: "No, I wouldn't. San Franciscans like me LEFT stupid little towns full of stupid little bullies like you. Oh, you're sexy, but I'd only fuck you if you were bound and gagged, just to see how YOU like being helpless."

I feel guilty at the thought, but not very. Mean girls, the Go-Go Gang.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Film's mean snotty girls: the dream concurs that Blue Jasmine's characters ring false. Woody Allen doesn't get San Francisco: refugee city.
• Clothed but eroticized crotches: I sewed cloth thighs, crotches and bellies of catgirl & unicorn; I want these furry sculptures huge, huggable and comforting, but unsettlingly erotic too.
• They sing while kicking their victim: the "Singin' in the Rain" scene in Clockwork Orange. It gave me flashbacks--my worst childhood injury was from an unprovoked kicking attack in our school library.
• "Our Town": a few days ago I heard it and flashed back to being shunned and bullied. But why'd I react so strongly to a nonviolent song lyric?
• WARNING! Breaking ribs wasn't all they did! Shunning and mockery leave scars too. I mistrust the popular and sexy, assume they're a clique of mean kids. So I avoid anyone too attractive!

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