Afternoon In A Cafe

The following is a short piece written by Rodolfo Perez. 

Afternoon in a café

By: Rodolfo Perez

We sit facing each other in the almost empty café

She orders a plain latte, I a frothed cappuccino.

To be plain, she is by far the most interesting person I’ve ever seen.

She sits crossed legged in her denim straight legs, wearing brand less white low tops

Wearing an ice colored cardigan, the same color as her eyes.

Her hair is pulled back into a pony tail, as she reads, with no glasses, a book by Hemingway.

I suddenly feel embarrassed that I have nothing to read

So I look outside the window at the people going back to work form their lunch break.

I notice my coffee has arrived and take a sip.

I can’t help, but to look at her.

She takes a drink from her cup without making a face, so I know she is worth my time.

I don’t know what to say

More importantly, what will she say?

Will she invite me over to talk about Hemingway?

Or will she look at me in my white t-shirt and blue jeans, only to turn her eyes back into her novel?

She looks up.

We share a glance.

Frozen. The both of us.

I look into her ice colored eyes.

She stands up, and my heart pounds. Suddenly my mind has stopped.

She begins to walk towards me, and I know what I will say.

“Hi, I see you-“

My thoughts never turn to words as she walks past me.

She pays the cashier, leaves a tip at the table, and walks out of the café

Out of my life forever.

Chicago’s Legal Cafe 1338 W Madison (Where the piece was written) 

P.E.N.T.C.I.

Movie Review/Analysis: 500 Days Of Summer Pt.1

           

This post is dedicated to Jeremy, may he rest in peace.

 

READ BEFORE PROCEEDING: What’s up guys this is Rodolfo Perez. I’ve doing some thinking and have decided to give a review/analysis of a movie. Now, it will probably be divided into several parts, but will not be consecutive so if you don’t like the movie I’m reviewing or you just get bored don’t worry because it’s not like this will take up the whole blog or anything. With that being said, I would love to hear from you on your thoughts on the movie by either commenting below or emailing me. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter or subscribe my email to get all the updates on the blog. With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the read and I will talk later. SPOILERS

 When you decide to watch a romantic movie you usually expect some type of quirky beginning, some misunderstanding in the middle, and a final pronouncement of love in front of a large crowd of people. I remember the first actual romantic I watched in full was The Notebook, and being honest I didn’t really like it all that much for those reasons. Romantic movies are very repetitive and unless the actual filming is done well, the movie flops. I remember when I first saw “500 Days of Summer” I wasn’t really paying attention because, well, I expected the typical template of a romantic. I recently watched the movie on Thursday, and ladies and gentlemen, if you have not seen this film because you are expecting a typical romantic comedy/drama, you should really reconsider it. What Marc Webb put the audience through is something that is rarely seen in the romantic genre. Although the movie is 95 minutes long, you feel almost as if you have seen three movies instead of one. The beginning of the movie opens up with the note where the director is openly condemning a former love which gives the audience a sense of how the movie is going to play out. I thought the note was both humorous as it was powerful. To the unsuspecting viewer it may just seem like a reminder, almost a special acknowledgement to someone in the directors past. After the note, we are immediately fast forwarded into day 488 where the two title characters are seen holding hands. Summer, played by the amazing Zooey Deschanel, has a wedding ring on her finger, while Tom, played by the awkward Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has his hand covered by Summer’s, leaving us out of the picture, making us the spectators, or the one left outside of the inside joke. That’s sort of what Marc Webb did, the movie can be seen as almost an inside joke that the audience is slowly brought into as the movie progresses. The narrator says outright that this a boy meets girl story, which is true, but to the audience we sort of say underneath our breath “yeah right, and I bet this isn’t a romantic comedy either”. I think the narrator was a good move by Marc. By putting in the narrator it does not only move the plot along and sort of fill in the holes, but it acts as a conscious for the viewer. We are given the role as the audience from the beginning where Tom’s hand is blocked from our eyes, and Webb knew this, so he gave us a guide to the film in the narrator, who was Richard McGonagle by the way. Moving on, we are shot to day one, where Tom is introduced. Tom, to say the least, is made out to be a conformist. He goes with the way of love where he has the vision of being with somebody, and finding someone, which is what the typical romantic movie is, it’s the journey of two people to their love, and their hardships. I love that the movie introduces the artwork that was “The Graduate” because it gives a little hint of what’s going to happen in the movie to those who have seen “The Graduate”, and if you have not seen that movie I highly recommend it. 

 

Anyways, so Tom is shown to be a firm believer in the traditionalist ways, but then we are presented to Summer. To put it in simple terms, Summer is a bit of a realist. She sees things as they are, and because of that, does not necessarily believe in love or the idea of destiny. So those are the two characters in the film to which we come to know, recognize, and even understand where they come from. Marc Webb takes two of the most popular personas out in society and put them side by side to see their encounters and conversations. The transitions between the experiences shared and those experienced by the individual are shown in great light throughout this film. I wish I could talk more, but I have to go. More to come, thank you for reading.

                                                END OF PART 1

                                                                      P.E.N.T.C.I. 

OLD RELIABLE

THE FOLLOWING IS WHAT MANY MAY REFER TO AS A POEM.

Old Reliable

By: Rodolfo Perez

Our memories are like Holden or Bateman.

Unreliable.

Whether we experience the memories to which please us, is a mystery.

What do we see?

A green pasture, isolated from the thoughts of devastation?

Or a teapot over a turned-off stove?

This endless pursuit that ends in a bloodstained fit.

To take a bow on a worn out stage.

Civilization does not advance on a green pasture,

But we still look for it, whether or not we leave society behind.

We are all the swindled, the hoodwinked, the person waiting for the teapot to boil.

Never able to escape the wishes of the mind.

Barbed wire, fire, desire.

Happiness is not a movie, these big screens with moving pictures.

Happiness is a stopwatch.

Or a paycheck.

I have experienced happiness in my past.

But it was never eternal.

Eventually we all go back to work,

 Attempting to find those experiences once more.

Only to reset the stopwatch once more.

P.E.N.T.C.I.

Snow vs. Me

Hello all, and welcome to another edition of Me Talking. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but I’m getting tired of snow. When I was younger snow was everything. I remember I would cry if I wasn’t able to go outside on a snow day. I just felt like running around in this white powdery stuff was God damn awesome. It wasn’t until about the age of 13 I realized that snow is not all it’s cracked up to be. Now I find snow to be a chore. Recently, my city was hit with 19 inches of snow, which meant I, and my brothers were in charge of shoveling the driveway. This experience reminds me of that scene from “Citizen Kane” where he’s playing in the snow with his sled. I feel like my relationship with snow is a lot like the relationship with Mr. Kane and his sled. I don’t like snow that much, but the history I have with it keeps that story alive. I don’t know, maybe I will change opinions again one day, but for now, it’s that way. Before I go I just wanted to share some good news. I have recently gotten sort of a job editing film. It’s really fun. I might release some of my work online or email me if you want to see it. Thank you for reading, don’t forget to subscribe via RSS and don’t forget to tell a friend.

                                                                 P.E.N.T.C.I.

THE WEEKEND

Hello and welcome to another edition of Me Talking. So it’s the weekend! I have a love hate relationship with the weekend. There are some Friday nights where I just want to be alone away from most people and there are those Fridays where I want to go out and just talk. Do you guys ever feel that way? Yesterday I came home feeling sort of out of it. I felt as if I wasn’t really thinking. I was moving, eating, and working, but I felt like I was just doing those things and not really putting much thought into them. It’s sort of humorous to feel that way because no one else recognizes it. While feeling this way, I like to think what causes me to be this way? Is it laziness? Fear? I can’t stay in this phase long enough to actually figure it out for one reason or another, but the questions still remain. I like to think that I’m just recovering from the week. We all need a little time to just stop living and observe.

                                                                  P.E.N.T.C.I.

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS (UPDATE #9)

               Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Me Talking. Ladies and gentlemen I have a question for you, and you do not necessarily have to e-mail or comment to answer. I am assuming the majority of you who are reading this have been in school and have graduated or are still enrolled. The question has to do with the topic of educators. In my time in school, I see teachers of all kind. I mean, especially substitutes. With substitutes I cannot tell you the numerous amounts of substitutes I’ve met in my short life. Why are there some teachers who constantly try to be “cool” with their students? Coming from a student, I will try to explain this invisible boundary that teachers try to cross, but will never surpass. To me, school is my job. I am a STUDENT, and my job is to learn, graduate, and go into society to change it. Don’t get me wrong, going through school doesn’t mean we have to be reserved and complete hermits, but like it is our jobs to learn, and to stay focused, I think teachers have to stay focused on their jobs. I had this band teacher once, and I remember he would be so obsessed with the idea of getting close to his students. He would constantly open up about his personal experiences with us, such as commenting on how his kids don’t listen sometimes or how his wife and him got a long so well. People liked the fact that he would be real open about his life, so some of my classmates would open up as well. The problem was, whenever a student would try to make a joke or try to be a little loose with the teacher, he would spazz out and get strict. I think that’s where that boundary lands between the teacher and the student. In the end, they still have the authority, the power over you. At any moment they can turn on a dime and abuse their power. I’ve always wondered if those students who are really cool with teachers ever realized that. It’s kind of like when you’re at work with your boss. I mean, he or she is YOUR BOSS, you shouldn’t be telling her/him about your life. It should be us against them, and not necessarily in the warring way, but in the way where we, as students notice this and try to show the teacher that we come to learn and not to make friends with the teacher.   A teacher should not be friends with their pupils, even if they have a great relationship. They need to keep a professional distance from students to keep a level of professional respect that would otherwise disappear. Pupils even when they are older teenagers often find it difficult to tell the difference between a professional relationship and a friend’s relationship. A teacher needs to be the one who makes sure it is always a professional relationship. If not, you see that abuse of power where the teachers look worse than they actually are.

                                                            P.E.N.T.C.I.