When you wear what you REALLY want to, it always looks good.
the camera keeps an eye on Max; the clues we put on shelves
Max watches her leave. He tries not to hear the silence of Sophie undressing. He turns.
There are trash bags below the sink. Max cleans up. The pile of scarves like a tangle of limbs, colors, patterns. The scraps and shreds of tweed, lining, leather patches. Max gets ink on his fingers double checking the pockets. What was once a pair of scissors wrapped in the remains of a white dress. Max tries to wash the ink off of his hands, fails.
As Max looks around the apartment, he is careful to keep his back to the bedroom because he is a coward or a gentleman. He places one curiosity in front of an other.
Our private eye sees signifiers everywhere; representamen, clues. Max attempts to read – in the intersections, confluences, and conflicts between resident and residence – who Sophie was before the fall. Max attempts to decipher a home.
He sees: Clutter, meticulously arranged. Small clusters of objects arranged here and there by size color shape into triangles and concentric circles, fans and small towers; strange stage sets in miniature made from knick knacks, needles, spools of thread, keepsakes, the remnants of history, messages from the City. Lines, patterns, the symmetry of the kaleidescope.
He sees: A red velvet couch, old, patched with squares of different red fabrics. A coffee table, wood stained, coffee stained. Various pegs, hooks, racks and lampshades where scarves had hung. The wall is scattered in a wider symmetry with posters for films and plays; tintypes and photographs of a mythic ancient Hollywood; framed squares of fabric.
There are a few points in the apartment where the symmetry is disrupted, where objects exist in the context of no lines but their own: a scattered pile of handmade handbills and programs with Sophie’s name in the credits, a small ceramic dear, a copy of The Street of Crocodiles with a chopstick for a bookmark.
The kitchen is separated from the living room by a counter and a passage. Paper lanterns hang over the counter. A vase of tulips sits in its center. The kitchen is neat, orderly, well stocked. The only meticulous pattern is made from the magnets on the refrigerator – a mandala composed from odds, ends. There are no matching pairs between plates, bowls, mugs.
As he scans the bookshelves for familiar authors, titles – Max thinks about what city all this is a map to, about the hands that placed the objects. Max translates what meaning he can from languages that suggest, imply, do not define. Max infers vague figures from the books with well worn spines, the books with uncut pages, the arrangement of books by subject and color; vague figures who read Ionesco, who seem to sit only in the center of the couch, who have a red toaster. Max tries to construct vague figures, earlier ghosts of Sophie.
Max tries to focus all the lenses, order all the frames, ignore sections of his memory. Max tries to read the setting as best he can. He takes note of repeating themes, juxtapositions, general atmosphere, converging paths, the things that are done with space. Max does what he can with clues in a context.
He draws no conclusions. He forms hypotheses. He wonders what Sophie is up to. He pulls a book from a shelf, sits in the center of the couch, turns toward the middle, reads.
Sophie smiles to herself when she sees Max smiling to himself while absorbed in a collection of Little Nemo Sunday strips and absentmindedly twirling an unlit cigarette between his fingers.
Max looks up. Sophie has changed.
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Exit 23
Whatever it is, it is perfect.
I believe this: There are no endings.
empty hands..
Time is running out lover… our ebb and flow of love and war is dwindling as the swell receeds into the sea of differences between us. Our secret is no longer kept and now together we walk in the light. Soon we will be seperated by more than ideas but geography as well. Neither of us will ever be ready for that moment to arrive.
Today I bought a notepad. I need it for paper to write letters to my friends.
I just realized it is the exact same notepad my grandma used to use for her letters.
So this is what a change for the better is like.
