Friday’s Arc
August 9, 2008
Awake, 8-ish; sludgy commute, I am dragging a ~50 lbs. camera bag with me; finish novel by popular Japanese guy on the train — grade… I’d say B-minus; early-day consumption is banana, coffee, water. Produce mass-mailing of reproductive healthcare CD, grapple with strange non-intuition of helper-intern woman. Mid-day consumption is: trailmix. Withering within this busy-ness. Merciful tech e-mail floats into view: Total System Shutdown tonight, everyone must leave at 4pm! Lug the bag to Alphabet City — hasty thrift-store hopping. The scene we are shooting today is the tail end of the main character’s suicide speech, to be shot on a roof in the East Village. The lines we have to cover are these: “Voluntary death must give us peace, if not happiness. Now that I am ready, I find nature more beautiful than ever, paradoxical as this may sound. I have seen, loved, and understood more than others. But I am a not a god. I am one of the most common humans. Goodbye.” This passage is stolen perhaps word-for-word from Akutagawa’s own suicide note. I am looking for something like peasant garb; director arrives to meet me, scolds me for being too literal. I am still wanting a second cup of coffee. The Actress arrives, we switch thrift stores. …continued
