Some films are better than others

“Some Days are Better Than Others” is one of the better films I’ve seen in a good long while. First there was the “hmm!” discovery that the film stars James Mercer of The Shins (he and everyone else in the film is fantastic). Then there was the fact that it snuck down from Portland, Oregon in all its unassuming splendor. We caught it at MoMA’s New Directors/New Films series.

It’s the beautiful girl with no makeup on: refreshing and authentic – especially in contrast to the well-lacquered lounge floozies of Hollywood. (Harsh? But you get the idea…) Matt McCormick lets nothing escape his lens. With stark inserts of wrecking balls crumpling Portland houses, and bottle green expanses of Pacific shoreline – even a character opening a refrigerator door – everything has that calm clarity of a morning spent alone. And the movie doesn’t just shrug in a mumblecore kind of way. It confronts you with issues of educated poverty, foreclosures, forgotten objects, lost souls, and the yearning to matter to someone…or in the case of one character, matter to everyone. It spoke to me. What did it say? I’m not going to tell you.  Give your ten, eleven dollars to Matt McCormick who made an ultra low budget movie look like oro verde. I sincerely hope you get the chance.

Mama Told Me Not to Come

Mama told me not to come. To be fair, so did the US State Department, two New York City cab drivers, and several coworkers, who employed various tactics to reiterate their warnings. At once, and again almost every day before my husband and I left for Colombia, I was made to feel that I was volunteering to board a cheap speedboat to my doom. Had I said I was visiting another South American country (just about…any other country), I don’t believe I would’ve met the same response. Yet somehow I maintained a reasonable skepticism about it all. As a freelance writer from New England, my only natural fears were a.) sharks and b.) April 15th. But with so many different people bending my ear about this Colombia thing, I began to wonder if maybe I was the one missing something.

This was the winter of 2010, fast-approaching 2011. Was it a mild, xenophobic hangover from the Escobar Days that plagued so many of us, even still when we thought of Colombia, the travel destination? The purpose of my visit was a honeymoon, but also to meet several in-laws for the first time. Colombia was going to be a part of my life from now on. There was never really a question; I was going. No, the question others drilled with a carpenter’s precision into my skull was: just how foolish was I? So I decided to crunch the numbers.

Visiting multiple “stat sites” on kidnappings, murders, and muggings of foreign visitors, I found that I was more likely to be kidnapped in Mexico, Venezuela, or Ecuador (where I would also later go) than in Colombia. The chances of my being killed or mugged were no greater than in several U.S. cities. Yet the US State Department still listed Colombia as the ONLY South American country on its shortlist of international Travel Warnings, which included – in contrast – nations who were currently at war, exercised state-sponsored terrorism, and possibly hosted Osama Bin Laden. So where was the evidence to support this categorization?

Thankfully, I ignored my critics’ urgings and went to both Bogotá and Medellin as planned. I enjoyed the fresh energy, beauty, and hospitality of Medellin. (Not to mention a fantastic transit system and incredible food.) And I enjoyed the Colonial quiet of the Candelaria, the swanky Zona Rosa, and the straightforward urban middle of Bogotá – especially the library and a certain German bakery that had the finest baked goods I’ve ever tasted anywhere.  Instead of getting mugged – as I often feel after so many overpriced-yet-mediocre dinners in New York City, where my husband and I now live – I came home with a wallet that hadn’t suffered our adventure much at all. Memorable meals, cab rides, sights and diversions had all been had very cheaply. At one point I even got a terrific haircut from a guy with braces in Bogotá that cost me $5. It felt so wrong I ended up tipping him more than the cost of the cut itself. So I’d say to you, if you were looking to take an affordable vacation – somewhere you could experience a vibrant culture, diverse climate, and natural beauty in the extreme, find yourself a ticket to Colombia. (And tell the US State Department webmaster they seem to have a stowaway from last decade.)

It’s “bean” a long, long, long time…

Sorry for the white screen that has bean, and sorry for the white screen below…but if you perk up your ears, you’ll catch harmonies you never could before in one of the greatest Beatles songs of all time:

…more to follow, shy travelers

Dear Gary Puckett,

I couldn’t sleep until I had it resolved. It was one of those questions that you ask yourself, but barely, like the small child version of you asking the preoccupied adult. The adult forgets to answer the child and so the question goes unanswered for years until suddenly you can’t get to sleep one night until you know…

DID THE SAME SLOB SING MY TWO LEAST FAVORITE SONGS OF ALL-TIME,

“Young Girl Get Out of My Mind” and “Woman, Woman Have You Got Cheating on Your Mind?”

The Google Gods confirmed this suspicion in less than six seconds. A Mr. Gary Puckett did the deed on both counts, poisoning my young ears in the cars of my childhood and every now and then buzzing in my adult skull against my will. Mr. Puckett, the way I see it you owe me something for inflicting this trauma; something more than a pack of gum and less than a jet. Whatever it is, I’ll think of it and then I’ll let you know…

Puckett

Undergoing ST Makeover – Somewhat Massive

I’m excited. You’re excited. Time for a slow dance…

ted.

Spring-jammed

Anybody seen Spring lately? Kind of like the liveliest guy at the party, Spring breezed in a little while back, smiling, flanked by models, and then – what – went back out for a smoke?  In any event, the guy keeps disappearing. Maybe the back door got jammed. He better show his face again before Summer gets here.  Summer shows up late, leaves early, and drinks all the Corona, without fail.

While we’re waiting, have some hummus, and a laugh:

Metaphor for Love

I once went running hungover (still drunk, really) through a Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park. For me, this is the perfect metaphor for love, especially at the beginning of a relationship. Everything is new and beautiful; you’re completely disoriented; adrenaline propels you through your own exhaustion, and yet every few yards you find yourself dodging horse droppings or tripping over children in tiny tunics. By the time you’ve made it through the crowd it’s hard to tell how far you’ve come and where you are now, and most importantly, whether you want to stop or keep on going.

love or just a friggin' festival?

Kirsten Dunst “is” Spiderman in NYC

No, no, no, you say; Kirsten Dunst plays Mary Jane in the ever-popular Spiderman movie franchise. Spiderman does not exist in real life, nor does Dunst even play the character in the movies. However, The Shy Traveler has a little real life story for ya. Doesn’t TST always have a little story for ya?

This past weekend, The Shy Traveler and friend, Josh Levine, were on our way up Eighth Avenue around midnight when we encountered a man face down in the sidewalk. No, this man wasn’t just taking a seat after a few too many mojitos, and he also wasn’t homeless. He was barely conscious and coughing up things that looked like teeth. The contents of his wallet were scattered on the pavement and he was dangerously close to the street. This man was in extremely bad shape, with no comrades in sight, and in serious need of some help.

While countless tourists, New York residents, and even a police officer tripped over his legs and passed him by without so much as blinking, Josh and I stopped. We hoisted him into the upright position and tried to get some information from him such as “do you have any friends we can call?” and “where do you live, man?” We tried to get his possessions back on his person. After a couple of minutes of readjusting the wilting man, he launched out of our arms into oncoming traffic. (African American man+black leather coat+dark pants+nighttime = p-a-n-i-c.) Cars screeched to a halt in succession inches from hitting him, until he fell down in front of one. I ran into traffic after him and dragged him back to the sidewalk. He kept saying “Jessica…I loved her…” over and over. Nothing else that came out of his mouth resembled English or any other discernible language. After Josh and I got him sitting down again with both sets of hands gripping the straps of his backpack, a group of four people stopped to help us out. A petite blonde girl and her father, along with two other women pulled over. The girl offered our fallen man some water and called for an ambulance. Her father picked up dollar bills strewn on the sidewalk and gave them back to the man. The group asked us where we were coming from and told us how nice it was that we’d stopped to help. Josh and I had our focus trained on the man and our energy on keeping him away from the street, but we realized after a couple of glances that the blonde girl in the group was Kirsten Dunst and this man with her must be her father. (There was too much of a resemblance for him not to be.) We told them they could go since the ambulance was now on its way, but they insisted on staying with us a good 15-20 minutes in the bitter cold until it arrived.

So thanks to Kirsten Dunst, a good NYC samaritan, and to her father, who seemed also to be a salt-of-the-earth type of person, for your help.

To our fallen man, I hope you’ve recovered from Saturday night and whatever heartbreak Jessica may have caused. I said it then and I’ll say it again now, “She’d be a fool not to love you, man.”

Valentine to You: Some Favorite Craigslist Missed Connections

What do blue clogs, tears, frozen fish, and Titanic quotes all have in common?

Well, in honor of Valentine’s Day 2009, I thought I’d share some of my favorite recent Missed Connections from Craigslist NYC. I can only hope these folks found each other and exchanged some cheap chocolate love today…

1. Blue Swedish clogs FRI 12:30 downtown W blonde – m4w (Flatiron)

2. A Train/Dyckman u were crying & wearing a blue coat with gray fur trim – m4w (Inwood / Wash Hts)

3. Jan 23 – You bought 2 pieces of frozen tilapia, Park Slope Food Coop – m4w - (Express Checkout, 7:30pm-ish)

4. I just cant get over you – m4w

I have my good days and some bad and I thought today might be a good one. Until Titanic came on. “You jump I jump, right?” Whatever happened to that?

Just waiting for the water to swallow me.

love can be elusive...that's why there's missed connections

An Occurence at Duane Reade Pharmacy

I was somewhere between denial and panic when I entered the Duane Reade on 75th Street and Columbus Avenue last week. I was too sick to really be out of bed but I needed medicine as direly as my bank account needed to be fed its greens, and that required some train travel. Things went from bad to catastrophic in an instant as I descended into the pharmacy and Meat Loaf’s “I’d Lie for You and That’s the Truth” seeped into my ears. I estimated the number of steps to the cold medicine aisle and back. I briefly considered turning around. They didn’t have Theraflu on the Prairie and people survived…sometimes. No, I could do this. A little Meat Loaf might even be nostalgic.  No one could deny that “I Would Do Anything for Love” was golden. (Although what was that “thing” he just couldn’t do? I’ve always wanted to know.) But this…this was just too painful and it made me wonder who this generation’s Meat Loaf would be. The voice so powerful and distinctive it could shake loose years of carefully-built confidence, flattering hair and makeup, and knowledge and respect for world affairs, and reduce one to a kid sweating on a cloth couch in the summer or 1991 in a Hot Topic number, bangs for days, watching The Price is Right and VHI. Too old for Nickelodeon and too young to appreciate the decade that made Meat Loaf a sensation, it was a difficult and confusing time to be alive and young in the world. So who will be this generation’s Meat Loaf? I’d like to believe that ours isn’t the only generation in a stranglehold with one or two artists from our musical past. (I’ll throw in Michael Bolton to complete the picture.) I’m just not willing to accept that the sacrifices we made on sweltering Tuesdays in July were simply to pave the way for the days of formulaic hip hop and innocuous pop. There must be a Meat Loaf among you…anybody? Anybody?