February 22, 2000 Paris
Last night I watched a bleak Luis Buñuel documentary called Land Without Bread. Made in 1932, it focused on a remote Spanish village somewhere in the mountains. They showed a traditional wedding where the groom rode a horse and was instructed ro snatch the head off a live rooster that hung upside down suspended by a rope. Most everyone in the movie was barefoot and slept in their clothes. Families lived in one room and earned what little money they had by selling honey made by hateful bees that stung a donkey to death. It showed a mountain goat losing its footing and fatally tumbling down a cliff.
I wished I could go back in time and give these people shoes and beds and sackfuls of rice.
February 23, 2000 Paris
Last night for the first time in three or four years, I opened my mouth in front of the mirror. The advantage of keeping it shut was that my teeth looked however I wanted them to. I knew they were messed up. I just wasn't prepared for all the gaps. According to my new French dentist, my bottom teeth have shifted and pushed the ones on top out of alignment. When I opened my mouth in front of the mirror, I discovered that I look like a donkey. I look like a jack-o'-lantern, like a poster child for orthodontia. Color-wise they're not as dingy as I expected, so that's some consolation.
If I look out the window near the dining-room table I can see a wheelchair chained to the fence that separates the courtyard from the neighboring building.
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