From Pathetic Life #24
Thursday, May 23, 1996
I wasn’t particularly intrigued by the movies’ descriptions in the Roxie calendar, but tonight was the theater’s last night of pre-Code movies, and Monday’s double feature had been wonderful, so I decided to go.
A Free Soul (1931) stars Norma Shearer as a woman who jilts her fiancé in favor of an accused killer who’s being defended by her father. The story is obviously far-fetched, Shearer is a gifted overactress, John Barrymore plays her father, and their daddy/daughter relationship is a bit, ah, peculiar. “I love you as much as I despise myself, and that’s an awful lot,” and other such melodramatic, histrionic, pretentious piffle.
Three on a Match (1932) is about a frigid wife who thaws in a hurry when she meets a hunky hunk of hunkiness on a sea cruise, and after that comes divorce and blackmail, kidnapping and big yawns. There’s a brief shot of Bette Davis in her undies, but nothing much else.
There are only a certain number of pre-Code movies worth watching, and whatever that number might be, tonight we exceeded it by two.
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During the second feature, a hummer sat behind me. The movie’s soundtrack has lots of breezy music, and he hummed along with every song. Several times I shushed him, and once I turned around and stared at him, but he probably wasn’t even aware he was humming.
I’ve dealt with talkers and whisperers and plastic-bag crinklers, little kids who squeal, big kids who have to go to the bathroom three times, and old people who say “What did he say?” to each other all through the movie, but a hummer at the movies is the worst.
When the show ended, everyone slowly walked up the crowded aisle, me right behind the hummer, so I hummed the movie’s theme song very, very loudly six inches from his head. And he heard me, but only smiled and bopped his head a bit, and hummed along.
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Before the movies, I worked at Judith’s house, washing dishes with a hairy sponge. Lugosi the dog sheds everywhere, so on my weekly maid visits a pound of dog hair gets swept down the stairs and into a plastic bag — if I’m feeling energetic, or simply swept out onto the sidewalk if I’m lazy.
Hair is biodegradable, right? So skipping the plastic bag is probably a greener choice.
Despite sweeping it all up a month ago, there was dog hair in every room, on the furniture, in the shower, on the table, in the cat litter, in the hamper with dirty clothes. Hair floats through the air and lands on the dishes in the sink, so there was dog hair on the sponge as I washed the
dishes. No amount of plucking at the sponge could dehairify it, and why bother, when there’s more hair on the next dish to be washed?
Lugosi’s hair amazes me. How can a dog shed that much hair and still be hairy? So I swept the steps, washed dishes with a hairy sponge, played with the dog, and came home covered with a fine layer of dog hair myself, and then I went to the movies and wished I hadn’t.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
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