AMBITION

Finished up my digital production class on Saturday. After shooting on the corner of Canal and Broadway for a couple of hours I needed to unwind. I really wanted to see The Prestige and that became an ordeal in itself. First taking the train to 34th and Broadway to find a theater that wasn’t there, then heading up to 70th and Broadway to find it sold out. It was going to be the Enormaplex (25 screens!) on 42nd or nothing. I took the #1 down to 59th to catch the A-train, and ran into a friend riding south as well, which was weird considering how big this place is and how remote the chances seem of just running into anyone (there must be some kind of statistic for this sort of experience). Der A-train ended up being late or something, the platform getting alarmingly crowded with people just continuing to fill the empty space and no way a train was going to clear the herd out fast enough. I had to wedge through the throng to get the hell out after deciding to walk the 17 blocks. Crowds that size suck my energy up. Sometimes I can deal, sometimes I can’t. Luckily I made it to the Enormaplex in time for the 8 0’clock show and I was able to get a seat, chill, and thoroughly enjoyed the film. It’s one of those pictures where you run the plot over and over in your head thinking things like “If he was doing that, then that means he was that, which means that what he was was actually that. But then did the other guy know that he was that as well? And was he that as well? And what about the guy at the end?” Total mind fuck. I headed over to Port Authority to catch the A -train back home and ended up wandering the platform in one of those contemplative moods, listening to Bill Laswell and peering out beyond the tracks to edges of the tunnels. It’s creepy out there past the platform lights, and hard to make out details. Just images of metal and concrete and trash. I looked down and saw a rat that happened to crawl out of a grate (see above). He was checking things out and apparently found some dirty-old-soot-covered-tasty thing. It was big as well. Too big. I ended up watching this guy repeatedly try to force this piece of whatever he had in his mouth through the grate, to be thwarted over an over until he must have broke off enough of it to get it down into his happy hole. If that was the case, then smart little rat.