The Story of Film: An Odyssey; Lorazepam; Ross Dress for Less black dress shoes, $29.95.

I’m All Lost in … the 3 things I’m obsessing over THIS week.

#23

1) The Story of Film: An Odyssey is (an hour-long-each) 15-episode documentary series made in 2011 about the history of movies, or “cinema” as the earnest and eloquent narrator/writer Mark Cousins prefers to call it—with starry eyed reverence.

Jean Cocteau’s Blood of Poet, 1931

Perhaps I’m beguiled by Cousins’ Irish accent, but following his seamless brain-synapse segues, which he narrates with lines like “a film with its eyes lowered,” is a delight as he connects movies such as Disney’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) to French avant-gardist Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet (1931); or Italian neorealist masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948) to Hollywood film noir classic Double Indemnity (1944); or iconic American teenage alienation movie Rebel Without a Cause (1955) to Egyptian art film Cairo Station (1958).

I admit, I’ve only been watching the series as a way to fall asleep while crashing on my friend Gregor Samsa’s couch this week (he’s the one who turned me on to this sweeping series.) And so far, I’ve only watched “Episode 4, the 1930s - The Arrival of Sound;” “Episode 5, 1939-1952 - Post-War Cinema;” and “Episode 6, 1953-1957 - Sex & Melodrama.” So, I’m not 100% clear on Cousins’ grand thesis. But generally, his surprising pivots, such as the one I noted from Hollywood classic Rebel Without a Cause to Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s Cairo Station, should give you a sense that Cousins is an inclusive film docent who is interested in nudging the history of cinema away from Hollywood movies, which he reveres regardless, and into a global context.

Ultimately, Cousins keeps coming back to the word “innovation” as the controlling theme of film studies. Accordingly, Cousins turns his attention to moments like Enrique Riveros’ splashdown into Jean Cocteau’s mirror (in the aforementioned and experimental Blood of a Poet); or the superimposed film screens behind the music club dances in Love Me Tonight (1932); or the Bauhaus shadows in Frankenstein (1931); or Joan Blondell and Etta Moten’s feminist subversion in the musical grand finale to Busby Berkley’s Gold Diggers, 1933 (1933).

2) Lulling myself to sleep might be the larger theme this week.

After sitting shiva with Mom in the living room until 11:30 pm most nights, I would suddenly find myself anxious and wide awake on the hard couch in the guest room—a little anxious too about the mouse sightings; I heard one scurrying in the hallway outside my door at night as well. Luckily, Dad’s personal effects came with a bottle of calming, elysian inducing Lorazepam.

Benzos, Bennys, electric music, and solid walls of sound.

It’s probably not wise to make a habit of plugging into the faithless (with electric boots and a mohair suit) by sprinkling your nervous system with Benzodiazepines. Suspiciously, in addition to feeling drained and melancholy this week, I’m also feeling chemically downtempo as well.

But I was grateful for the deep sleep.

3) Fed up with the holes in all my dress shoes (living in soggy Seattle), I finally tossed out my entire threadbare collection last November. I only remembered this otherwise excellent decision as I was packing for Dad’s funeral on Tuesday night.

My backup plan, which I thought could actually turn into a fitting in memoriam, was to find a pair of shoes in Dad’s closet when I got to D.C. But when I looked, it turned out (I had forgotten) that we’d handed off all his dress shoes to a thrift shop last year when we moved my parents out of their condo into a senior living apartment.

So, the day before the funeral, the chatty health care worker who’s helping my 89-year-old mom offered me a ride to the nearby shopping center. I quickly ended up at the Ross Dress for Less where I found the perfect pair—and a comfy bargain at $29.95.

3/15/24

After tucking in my grey, heavy cotton dress shirt and putting on my classiest tie (feeling my Dad’s warm hands and breath first teaching me how), I slipped on my brand new Perry Ellis Portfolio Ultra Foam black dress shoes.

I am now committed to putting these regal bargain shoes to the test.

3/21/24