Calum, who now lives in Lucaya running Guanahani’s, or so he says, and claims to have been the inspiration behind their papaya ginger pork, just taps away at his discman and swears he should never have missed Edge of Darkness to pay a visit to a place like this.
As to the business with Lystead and Wishhart—let me try and get this straight because, even though it frankly bores me brainless, there’s no avoiding it and, by tomorrow every little suburban outcrop from Southport to Roeford will know that the University audit office is finding “inconsistencies” (read: “one of the bank accounts is missing”) in one of our quaint College arts festivals’ accounts, a subject on which the University of Southport Arts Festival Committee will issue a statement denying there’s any problem (“whatsoever.” Yeah, right.) followed by several long blasts out its collective artistic poke probably, and two senior charity managers at Arts for College Old Folks or The Arts ‘n’ Farts Foundation or whatever, who are probably, as far as I know, screwing each other like what?, minks I guess, really old minks, will eventually resign, and disappear in the direction of the Palais Schwarzenegger Hotel, Vienna, probably . . .
“They do a real nice green apple chutney, Harold.”
“Oh yes, Maude, so I see.”
The trouble with back story is that it is so incredibly trite, so totally stalled, so plain monkey-headed dull, that nobody in their right minds wants to watch. Back story’s like some mopey foster kid turning up in a house of real cute brothers and sisters, and if it wasn’t for the connection with the Festival of the Waters Film Festival I wouldn’t mention it at all. The best thing to do is just to get on with your film—that is, with the forward movement of your film. But the connection’s here:
The University of Southport “Festival of the Waters Film Festival” started way back. I guess in, what, 1967, or ’69 maybe? Either way, it started when two guys from USP decided to screen at the Roxy, during the Waters Art Festival, some 8mm shorts they’d made on the beach that summer. The screening was a hit, and soon other USPites and film-makers from the beach and the Valley were wanting to screen their own films, both professional, by that stage, and amateur. By the 1970s (bored yet?) the festival had become a noticeable Southport event. They launched a regular awards program, screened Mondo Trasho one year and, in the third year (’74, I believe), actually had both George Romero and Karen Black as guest presenters. Later that year the festival was taken over by the Arts Festival Committee as a formal USP annual event. Local council support was “thus forthcoming” (to quote the flyer); followed by such corporate sponsorship from the likes of: KB Beer, Mixx Surfwear, Monstrol Pharmaceuticals, Loon Bach clothing, the Mitsui Motor Company and, recently, One-Tech Supa-Phone Shops. Growth continued through the ’80s and 90s to now “combining the best local talent with a varied program of major independent productions, new talent showcases” and the occasional first release studio slot. Everything is screened at The Roxy cinema.
End of History 101.
Down at Lystead and Wishhart, the office is buzzing as they’re starting to comb through Christ knows how many University accounts (all very Miss Marple), looking for monies in, monies out, trying to pick up where the cash went so the College doesn’t have to lose their government contract for overseeing this kind of big public arts spending, acting like nothing is happening, while the two senior charity managers (unknowing) are going on attending board meetings at Hycraft Concrete, the Montreal View Gallery, Donatii Constructions, the Festival of the Waters Film Festival, and the Board of Governors of the University of Southport. Before they leave, that is, for Greece to view the Mycenaean palace architecture in ancient Pylos.
The way I figure it, it’s always possible to reject the performative ineptitude of some crimes and still gaze on their beauty—to quote Truffaut who does it, after all, in La Mariée était en noir. And really, having said all that, who gives a shit? He also says: “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.” Or was that Godard who said that? Anyway, it’s relevant.
“Candia O Candia,” Karen sings.
I go in first and phone film her from behind the Kencaf machine, entering through the cafe doors whose glass is partly covered by such things as STUDENT UNION APRIL 3: GOMEZ, TICKETS HERE and THE GAY CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE WANTS YOU and FENDER BASS FOR SALE, CHEAP. She does not know why she sings and is embarrassed to have done it. She laughs and apologizes. Karen’s laugh enters my soundtrack like . . . the scent of cinnamon, a pinch of vanilla, some sweet cake shop. She reveals that she may have done it because she is happy at having been accepted to do a master’s degree in English Literature, and has taken a job in Supa-Video on the Halfmarket, overlooking the beach.
The mall is already cranking up and glaring and the traffic follows a curve, like some kind of giant knee raised abruptly into downtown, and pedestrians, mostly office bods and shop assistants from places like Linens n Things and Best Buy, Target and Big Shoes, alight from the buses which, at this hour, having access to the entire street, growl and smoke and give off heat which hangs in the air.
As Karen sits down next to me, I say, pulling back to keep her in full frame: “So here-- voice over-- we have Karen Munson who is writing a thesis on Joan of Arc. . . sorry, I mean representations of Jeanne d’Arc.”
She takes a lip liner from her pocket and gets ready to do her lips. “Well thank you, Mr. Droste,” she says, to my phone, “and I believe your own work is coming along a peach on Love and Death in the films of Roman Polanski? Or is it Dreams and Nightmares in the Hollywood Blockbuster? Better still: What Ever Happened to Farley Granger?”
“The latter,” I say, thinking Karen may not know that Farley Granger is still alive and appeared in The Whoopee Boys in 1986, and also thinking that Karen is obviously planning to let her hair grow out so that she looks like Ingrid Bergman.
She orders the Viennese coffee, medium ground. I order a brulot of the medium ground Costa Rican, along with some Honey Madeleines.
Candia is quite full for breakfast. I figure it’s because this week is Freshmen Week and also because there’s that upcoming local event called the USP Arts Festival for which step vans and floats and electricity company trucks are passing in the direction of the beach, and which would be pure poke if not for the Festival of the Waters Film Festival, which is attached to it. I decide also, in the same moment that I decide a medium long shot will give a sense of depth to what is feeling at this moment like a very narrow and hard place to tone, that I might write something on the films of Sam Raimi, being as Wes Craven has been all done to death and nobody really seriously believes he will ever do anything better than The Hills Have Eyes. I might also join the Student Film Society, though I hear they’re all into Gandhi and what Antonioni likes best and spend most of their time talking about what Harry Dean Stanton did to Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas. . . . like it’s not obvious!
The food arrives. My Madeleines look like something from a tomb, the clear amber they find in Egypt, I mean.
Karen says: “Considerable!”
She points at the wall opposite and says: “That’s In the Car by Roy Lichtenstein.” But she doesn’t stop there, pointing one by one. “Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird by Miro. Something by Hockney. Uh. Uh. That’s . . .”
“Sigourney Weaver,” I say, “In Gorillas in the Mist.” admiring the cinematography of John Seale and Alan Root for which neither of them, I might add, was nominated for an Oscar. “You’re very arteestic these days, Karen,” I say ironically, but she doesn’t bite.
We unwrap the cutlery which is wrapped in red paper napkins, though neither of us is planning on using it; but before I’ve even started my brulot, Helena walks in.
“Film what, did you say?” she asks Karen, kissing her
