What a week!

On Tuesday, we went to sleep with the weather service saying there was a chance of thundershowers and a possible thunder storm; we awoke to people calling us, because a tornado hit Bay Ridge! It actually hit three streets in the area: 58th Street (in Sunset Park) and then 68th Street and Bay Ridge Avenue (in Bay Ridge). So less than a mile from our house.

But our house is fine. And now it's raining again.

Tuesday, August 7, was the 9th anniversary of Kenny's death. Not that i don't think about Kenny, but it's not like Larry and i commemorate these occasions. A little while ago, i was telling Larry that i miss Kenny, but i also would hate to think what he'd be like if he'd lived, i mean, he would be an old junkie pushing 40 with AIDS. Tom A. called us; he really misses Kenny.

Anyway, Wednesday i went in the screening for Zhang Yang's "Sunflower". I liked it a lot, though the similarities to movies like "To Live" and "The Blue Kite" make "Sunflower" seem a little "de trop".... but there really are many things to admire in "Sunflower", not least of which is the performance of the child in the first section, Zhang Fan. Though Gao Ge (as the teenage Xiangyang) and Wang Haidi (as the adult Xiangyang) were fine, it was Zhang Fan (as the 9 year old Xiangyang) who was truly memorable.

Though going proved to be easy (the R and D lines seemed to be on schedule), getting back was really a nightmare. I waited at the 59th Street stop for almost an hour. A lot of N trains came by, six in fact, but no Rs.

So after the commuter mess on Wednesday, you'd think there'd be crews out trying to make sure that it didn't happen again. No such luck. Thursday going from Bay Ridge was easy, but (again) coming back was a nightmare.

Yesterday, i went in to Anthology for the press screening of Bill Douglas's trilogy: "My Childhood", "My Ain Folk" and "My Way Home". I realized i'd seen the first two films, but somehow i never saw the last. I think this was a brilliant and moving work, seen as a whole, and it reminded me of the recent screenings of Pedro Costa, because of the emphasis on the lives of what used to be called lumpen-proliteriate. I also liked the fact that Douglas waited to make "My Way Home", because he wanted the same young man as the lead, and the character was now an adult, so Douglas waited for the boy to grow up.

And "My Way Home" also takes the character to his service in the Middle East... and it reminded me of the fascination with the desert which informs "Lawrence of Arabia" and Gavin Lambert's "Another Sky".

But the point: getting back was hell. I got the the subway station at Broadway-Lafayette at 4:10 PM, and i didn't get home until almost 6! What should have been a forty-five minute subway ride, stretched out to almost two hours!

I thought i was going crazy. Two days in a row. So today, when there was a press screening fo Bill Douglas's "Comrades", i just couldn't face getting on the subway!

So instead i taped Fritz Lang's "Man Hunt" (which i think is one of his best 1940s films) and now i'm watching it....