Met deadline for Montco writer's contest - Hello St Tony - Meet Paul Page, tree trimmer

Here's me new sofa-bed from Gamburg's Furniture Store in Hatboro, PA. I special-ordered the "check pattern."

It was on this sofa that I proofed the final draft of my short story "Love Under the Willow Tree."

I probly revised it fifteen times. The last time I added more dialogue. Thing is, now I'm constantly paying attention to dialogue!

I wanted to postmark it today - March 1 - cuz it must be postmarked by March 3 - and mailed to the Writer's Contest at Montgomery County Community College.

I also sent in my poem, "The Tyvek House."

Quelle relief!

Checked out a foreign movie from the library called "The Temptation of St. Tony." Knew nothing about it, not even the language. It was vaguely Germanic, but when I goggled it afterwards, I saw it was Estonian, made in 2009.

The movie was visually gorgeous! The dialogue was also superb. I can't rightly tell you what it was about, other than: man's quest for meaning... is there salvation at the end? ...why do I participate in debauchery when I hate it? ... what is love?

The movie is often hard to watch b/c of the brutality. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from it.

Here are a few of the haunting scenes, all done in black and white:

What kind of cars do they have in the Eastern bloc? They were all big and beautiful.



Much of the film takes place among Rubble, such as found in the devastation of war. Here is a b'ful office building, but behind it is.....rubble.

I'm watching the film and a guy knocks on my door. My door is wide open cuz it's not that cold out and I like the light.

Meet Paul Page. He works for Mason's Tree Cutting Service. His boss, Scott Mason, makes him go around and knock on doors to get more business. Paul hates doing this, but does it anyway.

He's had doors slammed in his face. One guy swore at him and said his house is being foreclosed why the @#$ would he want his trees trimmed?

Paul lives in Jersey Shore, PA, a city I only heard of for the first time in my Diabetes Forecast magazine.

Ain't no work in Jersey Shore, so he called his buddy Scott Mason who told him to come up here and help w/trimming trees. He stays for free in a downtown hotel.

Near where Paul lives is Williamsport, PA. A reality show is going out there and Paul is downright pissed! All they're gonna do, he said, is drink at the bars and I forget the other thing he said.

The minute he came in the house Paul said I looked just like his friend Denise Mitchell.

I was struck by the name and wrote it down. I told him I'd just mailed off my short story and was looking for good names. "Love Under the Willow's" main character is Margaret A. Fitzpatrick, PhD."

Paul told me he used to write short stories and poems while in high school. His teacher Mrs. Reinhardt told him he was very talented. He was shocked! The first story he wrote "The First Snowfall" garnered much praise from his teacher, who recently passed away.

He met her a couple yrs ago at the store and she asked if he was still writing. He told her the last time he wrote was when he was in her class.

He's got two kids - Jonathan and Jessica.

Then Scott came over to fetch me for our nap, so the three of us talked.

You're a Democrat, right? I said to Paul.

No, he said.

Who dyou like?

Santorum.

I groaned inside but said nuffin.

When Paul was old enuf to vote, he told his grandmother he was gonna go out and vote. She told him to vote for Reagan, but he didn't need no telling, cuz he liked Ronny hisself, and he's voted every since.

This sounds a little bit like a short story, don't it?

In "Love Under the Willow," I debated whether to have young Brian speak grammatically incorrectly but I decided upon the King's English.

My friend Coach Iris really liked the story. I shore hope the student judges do too!

Here's some more photos from The Temptation of St Anthony, right off the laptop.

He's a priest. A line of the great dialogue is written below, something like "The trees are not trees, and the houses are not houses."

I mean, that's beautiful, right? Even if you don't know what it means. It doesn't always matter.

Here the self-same priest is literally climbing the wall of the church, an amazing scene.

I know Scott wouldn't like the movie. Bet my daughter Sarah would. We often have movie marathons when she comes to town.

Another photo of rubble with our hero leaning inside.

I like the juxtaposition of my orderly living room behind it.

Just reviewed the film on Amazon.com.