While I didn’t get a chance to watch the Tony’s (ok, who am I kidding… I never watch the Tony’s), I did get to see Mark Rylance’s quixotic acceptance speech. Instead of thanking his mom, hairdresser, and producer’s personal assistant, he launched into an obscure prose poem, “Back Country,” by Louis Jenkins. Since the lit crowd and the award show junkies seldom mingle, the recitation came out more like an intentionally crazed rambling. Which was perfect.

More perfect is one of the facts about poet Louis Jenkins that The Times decided to share with its online audience: “He has been a truck driver, fisherman, librarian, guard, gardener, and shoe salesman.” The Times’ article also contains the full text of the acceptance speech and a self-indulgently clever commenter who noticed the similarities between this and Andy Kaufman’s (in?)famous Gatsby reading.

I wish I could play guitar. Not because I have any rock star dreams (I’ve got my mediocre abilities on the keys to satisfy that), but because my next-door neighbor sucks and I would like to give him lessons as an investment in my own ears’ happiness. In my wildest dreams, I knock on his door and deliver this monologue:

“Ok, how long have you been playing guitar? If you’ve only been playing a year, then you should know you’re a good five years shy of even THINKING of playing loud enough for anyone except your mom to hear. If you have been playing longer, then you should have realized how talentless you are by now.”

I then take him out Bruce Lee-style, but that’s something for the therapist that doesn’t exist (because I can’t afford him) to figure out.

Like always, I’m broke when it’s time for a film festival (as evident in my replacement of two meals a day with peanut butter sandwichs). So, I haven’t even the time or money for a student rush ticket to one of the less well-known screenings. This is disappointing, too, after looking at the line-up the New York Film Festival has had for the past few weeks – and will have until the 14th.

For the features, I’m glad to see Persepolis has made it to closing night. I had a chance to see the original in France this summer (which, by the way, is the reason I’m broke – Paris is not a place for the lower middle class), and it was dazzling. The story and the images worked beautifully together to create a universe through the eyes of a child, or rather a woman thinking back to her child. The Darjeeling Limited, of course, was sure to have been a hit – though I was more intrigued by the prospect of seeing Hotel Chevalier. Chabrol’s new pic, A Girl Cut in Two looks promising. I’d love to see what the director of Les Cousins is up to almost fifty years later.

The retrospective screenings look almost more intriguing – The Other Side of the Mirror, Underworld, and Drums Along the Mohawk highlight the screenings. The 1920, gender-bending Danish twist on Hamlet seems intriguiging, though I am not one for Freud-ifying Shakespeare to such an excessive degree.

If only I was actually seeing any of these films. The new stuff I can Netflix eventually, or even see at a second run theater… but the classics only get re-screened like this once in a blue moon.