Marking Time

Time waits for no one—not even us. “Where’s the video of SATUR-19 spinning around and around? Leigh Ann sent it to me four years ago.” I found it labelled as “saturn-19” and put it right into the movie. I put it several places, and that’s what ended up tying the ending of the movie, “Time Waits for No One,” together in the end. We were very close to having something that could be shown for many months, and only in the last few days do we have something we feel confident showing just a small audience. It would be a nightmare if the full movie were due, or the final version of this 25 minutes, but it’s not, so no presh. Besides, Da Boss came up with an admittedly clever marketing campaign: these unfinished segments are the “single versions” of the same scenes that will appear in the “album” that is the feature film SATUR-19, playing December 6, 7, and 8 at the Mercury Theater in Baltimore.

“Why does all of Tribeca look like you put it through a PlayStation 2 filter? Wait, hold that thought—I have to order bananas.” No he doesn’t. He’s allergic to bananas. Why do I feel like I’m getting screwed here? Da Boss has left me alone to work on a sequence without his guidance. PFFT! I don’t need no stinking guidance from a flighty superior, I’ll just do it myself! Harumph!

I’ll describe one scene: a moving balcony of flowers, sunglasses, and lens flares from a stack of shots, one on top of the other, all refracted and subtracted from each other, a tangled mess of color and ominous, vaguely threatening movement. This whole movie is vaguely threatening in a way that separates it from horror. Not that it’s better than horror, and not that it isn’t, not horror… I just mean it’s definitely not as good as Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

There’s another section that’s just pictures and captions like “GOODNIGHT MOON” and “THE INNOCENTS.” Da Boss says I’m giving too much away with this article, but I don’t care what he says. We’re almost done, you should know.

I like the part where the screen goes to black and other words pop up but I’m not allowed to talk about any of that. Harumph!

Da Boss told me to take a break so I called Rooster and asked how he and Bennington were doing. “I caught a lilypud gerbil, honey!” Proud of him. Bennington was doing nicely: in the last year, since I’d taken the job, he’d started making and selling pinstripe suits and straw hats. He’s getting into “all-seasonal white” now, and trying to advance the concept that you can wear white all year long. His slogan is Patricia Hearst’s best line in John Waters’ Serial Mom: “Things Have Changed!!” Except this time Kathleen Turner is missing and unaccounted for, grifter victorious. I mean businessman. He’s really a nice guy.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been writing about my husband or Benny all year, it’s because I’ve kept them out of this. They needed a year off. I’ll need five when this movie is over.

—Follow Monica Quibbits on Twitter: @MonicaQuibbits