Lemony Webbles

triplets and wild turkeys

I finally got to see 'Triplets of Belleville' last Friday with the Quinlans. Karen just got back from her trip to Belgium and France so it was an especially French evening. I have been waiting to see this movie since October! And I had despaired of it ever making its way across the Atlantic when Billy and I spied that it was playing in a theatre in NYC, so we knew it would come soon. I had grown used to watching the trailer, where all the scenes are smushed together from 1.5 hours into 2 minutes, and it made a great music video. But there were a lot of quiet moments when it got stretched back out to it's original size. I couldn't really relate to this movie. I felt uncomfortable a lot of the time in this movie. Maybe it's a French flavor that I don't get, but the tempo was weird for my American eyes. It was really fast in parts that I wanted to see more of, or even played over and over (whenever the triplets were 'singing'), and really painfully slow in others that seemed really dull (like the chase scene and all the dog vs. train scenes). And there were all these really insanely fat people and then a few really scarily thin people, and not much in between. And those poor frogs. But some of it was really funny and there was a beautiful scene where madame Souza and the dog follow the kidnapped Champion's ship in a little paddle boat and made it all the way from France to NYC themselves. And there's this great ethereal choir music as they make this impossible journey over huge waves and get a little help from a friendly whale. I definitely want the soudtrack.

I have this weird dream to share because Liz shared one of hers on her web log recently and Husayn told me his weird dream today which reminded me of mine. Last night I had this dream where I was attacked by a pair of wild turkeys (not that I would know what one would look like, but in dream logic, that's what they were) that were defending their territory. They were really huge, kind of emu-looking, but they could fly (unlike emus). One of them flew after me and pecked me as as I was running away. Then my handball coach (???) called from across the field that I shouldn't run away because that would only make them chase me more and then they would think they needed to.. um finish me. So I'm thinkin, 'what, I'm supposed to fight back with my bare hands?' and the coach says, 'yeah yeah there's only one way to stop him. It's either you or him.' Then I woke up and tried to think of ways to kill a turkey with just your hands. It was a strange way to wake up. But that reminded me that I really was 'attacked' by a turkey once. It was in Guyana and I was visiting a friend's house. Her name is Lena. I walked up to the outer gate of her house and called the standard greeting, "Inside!" "A who dere?", came from inside the house. "It's Bahiyyih! Is Lena at home?" "Yes. Come." As I opened the gate I saw that I was entering the yard of a huge tom turkey who was just coming out of his turkey house. He puffed up all his feathers till he looked just like the Thankgiving icon with all the tail feathers in a half circle and started straight for me with a loud 'GOBBLE OBBLE OBBLE' (that doesn't sound very scary in writing, but it sure was when it was live) . I ran as fast as I could to the inner gate but he was faster and nipped me on the ankle as I got past him. I guess that's all the damage he could have done. I don't know what I thought he was going to do. I don't think turkeys even have teeth! but I knew I wanted out of there, teeth or no.