A Brush with the Royally Creepy

At the Brattle Theatre today:

Me: Hello. How are you?
Man: Good. I’m _____. What’s your name?
Me: I’m Sarah. <--Mistake # 1
Man: Oh good. What do you do for real?
Me: I’m a student. <--Mistake # 2
Man: Where?
Me: Do you know AB? <-- Mistake # 3

This was the beginning of one creepy conversation. Actually, the conversation was not creepy at all, but that guy was friendly…too friendly…so friendly it was creepy. Especially when the conversation careened into “We should get coffee together at Au Bon Pain next time you’re here” and “We should swap phone numbers.”

Now, if this were some hot Harvard student, I would be flattered with the attention, but this was a pasty, balding, beer-bellied, middle-aged, CREEPY man. And I couldn’t help running through my mind that I was talking to some crazy pedophile.

Seriously, aren’t all serial killers/rapists supposed to appear really friendly? This guy tried way to hard to impress me:

1. He says he used to teach fourth grade: Blatant attempt at making me trust him.
2. He disparages other people for not being friendly: Blatant attempt to make me feel special. (I just feel creeped out.)
3. He says he used to volunteer teaching English at Chinatown: Blatant attempt to appeal to common ground
4. He talks about drinking and smoking cigars: Blatant attempt at looking cool.
5. He says his students used to play in his backyard: Blatant attempt at making everything seem normal.

But it’s NOT normal! Not when he’s standing one foot away from me, and I’m pinned against the wall trying to get away from him. Not when I’m scared to go to the bathroom alone because I think he might attack me. Not when he keeps looking back at me during the movie. Not when he tries to teach me how to close the door by breathing down my neck.

Steff! You must come and protect me next week—I’m almost afraid to set foot in the Brattle in case I meet that creepy man again.

Am I being a cynical bitch or am I being sensible? How do you get rid of unwanted stalkers?

This is one of those days when I’m glad not to have a myspace or livejournal or a functioning xanga. Shit. Internet stalking is too easy.

A Brush with Royalty

Breakfast with Peter. Tea with Elizabeth.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of mass media is how easily stories are now shared. With the flip of a page or the click of a mouse, intimate portraits of centuries-old monarchs are accessible to even the proletarian masses. As a girl, I was always entranced by the grandiose tales of kings and queens and love and war. Who could not be roused with such stories of sacrifice, of love, of betrayal—of legend? There is a trend in history to deconstruct these legendary icons and paint them as ordinary people in extraordinary situations. But with Peter and Elizabeth, however, we only see that they are in fact Great.

Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
Progress update: Page 216 / 855. In a true test of endurance, I have managed to plod through a full ¼ of the mammoth tome. Actually, it is unfair to attribute it to endurance because Peter the Great is surprisingly readable and guess what—enjoyable. Peter, infallibly curious, daring and hot-tempered, is the type of guy that you might actually want to spend 800+ pages reading about. The book is painstaking researched (at least I hope it is, I don’t want to spend my summer reading a bunch of lies) and well written.

Elizabeth (Kapur, 1998)
History is sacrificed for drama, and this is a good thing—for drama, I mean, certainly not for history. The myriad of historical accuracies is secondary in this finely acted historical drama because its actors utterly convince you that everything happened just as it does in the film. For all I know, hot Elizabethan men walked about in chest baring shirts. Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, and Joseph Fiennes make the most of their juiced up roles, and a multitude of actors I adore turn up in smaller roles—Fanny Ardant, Emily Mortimer, Daniel Craig, Vincent Cassel, Kelly MacDonald….But Elizabeth the queen is to England as Cate Blanchett is to Elizabeth the movie—it is only with Blanchett’s glorious performance as the Virgin Queen that the film has any power. It might as well be Cate the Great. B+

More Offside Musings

According to Erik Erikson (yes, that is his real name), there are 8 stages of psychosocial development, where each stage represents a unique psychosocial conflict. The 5th stage is adolescence (ages 12-20), and the central conflict is identity v. role confusion.

While I can’t speak for the validity of any psychological theories—they seem to pop up and get discredited every few decades—I do think that Erikson is right about adolescence. There are no people I respect more than those who have a clear sense of identity—a direction to guide them into the future. I used to snicker with disdain at people with such tunnel vision, but I think I have come to a point in life, in adolescence, where self-understanding becomes expected.

I’ve recently been fixated on this search for identity because the emptiness of summer vacation lends itself to such contemplation. Due to the lack of chores, I’ve been wasting a lot of time on the Internet, where I was prompted today to “get a profile.” I’ve always felt that profiles are a cheap and lazy way to define yourself. Some cutesy phrases and emoticons plus a list of favorites hardly touch on your true character. Perhaps I’ve being overly lofty, but if you can distill yourself into such a description, then you are a shallow person indeed. I don’t think it’s possible, which is why I have always been reluctant to do it to myself.

Since Erikson says my most important responsibility is to find an identity, I’m off to do that now. But where to start? I don’t expect a sudden epiphany one day. I’m off to live life then. Carpe diem.

An Open Letter to the Male Parental Unit

Dad, I know that you read this blog. I know it because the Internet is not as anonymous as you think it is. What especially irks me is that you read it compulsively, but not openly. You do it in the clandestine corners of your office, and you won’t admit to it.

Well, now you see. I don’t converse with middle-aged pedophiles. I don’t trade in illegal substances. I don’t make money selling porn. I don’t plan criminal activities. And I don’t need to be monitored by you.

You probably think that I am closed off and aloof in person, and you want to “get to know” me better by peeking at my online ramblings. It doesn’t work that way. My Internet persona is vastly different from my real one, and if you think I’m losing touch with reality, let me assure you that I am only too painfully aware of reality and my part in it.

My blog is only a Polaroid snapshot: you get to see my face, but you only see one face, one pose, one angle. What is lost in translation is flesh and blood and soul. Yes, a photo of me is clearer than a fuzzy silhouette, but it is also more deceptive. You may think you know me, but what you know is a meticulously constructed façade that mimics, but never perfectly depicts me. I’m sure you understand how the Internet unites us across a physical distance but drives us apart on the emotional plane.

I ask that you respect me as a daughter, as a fellow human being, and stop reading because I ask you to. I seek a freedom to express without the stifling presence of a vigilante looking over my shoulder with every word. I ask you allow me that as I could easily pack up or kill this place altogether. I don’t want to play virtual hide-and-seek with you because it is annoying,frustrating and above all, it is for children.

P.S. Flippant attempts at being witty on the blog should not be interpreted as accurate psychological markers. See what I mean in saying the blog is deceptive? I only write about film so much because it’s easier; it’s less messy than real life. Filmmakers have already done the hardest job of distilling life into a tangible medium, and it’s easier to write about film than life in the same way it’s easier to eat French fries than raw potatoes. Just because I eat more French fries doesn’t mean I think it’s healthy.

Thoreau Lives at the Brattle Gym!

The summer's been going swell. I've sweated 10 liters of salty liquid, fixed my brother's light saber 5 times, and moved 200 lbs of laminate flooring into the basement. The numbers don't tell the complete story, but my summer's been going swell.

Saturday brought the first day of Brattle volunteering and an opportunity to explore Harvard Square. As many times as I've been there--I even used to live in Cambridge--I've never actually explored the place. I had never wandered into foreign language book shops, never walked down the stairs to obscure basement CD stores named Twisted Village, never touched every single bead at Beadworks. Lunch, however, was an obscenely expensive sandwich split with Steff and the pigeons at Au Bon Pain. (Scary coincidence: I saw my English project stalkee again.) After a stroll through the Harvard campus, I almost want to go to Harvard, just to soak in that ambience and explore all those remaining nooks and crannies.

As for the volunteering, it must be the best-paid, most laid-back volunteer job I have ever taken. Not only is the work minimal, but I also get to watch free movies, eat/drink free food, and get free movie passes. Plus I got to meet the director of the film--pretty cool!

Some weekend web surfing led me to a rabid Wes Anderson fan site. When I say rabid, I mean RABID. I think I've found my people with them, but the girls (I'm guessing) there were obsessive to a point that far surpasses even my obsessiveness. Point? Dude looks really good in black and white.

I spent most of Sunday bonding with my family at Walden Pond. My mom, brother, and I took a hike around the pond and saw what was left of Thoreau's famed cabin. The term "what was left" is applied very loosely here because, quite frankly, nothing is left. It was simply a pile of rocks assembled as a memorial and then a plaque marking a stone of Thoreau's house. Disappointing, Thoreau, disappointing. You should have built your cabin better.

Today, I started summer gym. There seems to be an excessive number of students this year so we didn't get to pick our classes. :( I got stuck with my elementary gym teacher who is surprisingly hardcore. Oh why did I pay $150 just so I could write a paper for gym class? Sigh.