RWF Eyes, Part One

New York is such a crazy place. From the food to the parking to the daily living, it really can be quite insane; the upside of all this is that it provides great material.

A long time ago I once wrote a story entitled “Rainer Werner Fassbinder Eyes” about a woman who worked at a local bakery in my neighborhood. Bakeries are big in Gotham as we have every type of bread and cake known to humankind, from the crispily-crusted San Francisco sourdough and smoothly sublime petite-four, to the perfectly fluffy cheesecake and beyond, very beyond. . . .  If it weren’t for the fact that the city affords miles and miles of walking it off, the effects of this situation would be truly devastating.

Aaaah, love it or leave it.

But back to the simple specter of the kaiser roll and seeded rye from which emerged my tale. The acronym of the story’s title actually had to do not merely with a corner bakery, but with the eyes and point of view of a certain formerly touted German film maker. The title also was meant to remind of the many artsy foreign films and retrospectives that once showed at the city’s movie houses, though of course many of these venues have all but disappeared. In those days however, when Fassbinder roamed the big screens with his bleak vision of humanity, there were lots more large and dark yet cozy spaces featuring foreign and what we now call “indie” movies from around the world; people did not have to huddle as much in front of their little home screens to stay connected, whether by fact for fiction.

Fassbinder was a bit of a downer, even in the universe of intensely thought provoking “art films,” and that’s putting it mildly. In addition to his especially grim world view, he had an incredibly long, harsh and self important sounding Teutonic name that took some real effort and concentration to utter: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; in addition, there was the sticky problem of which way to pronounce the “W”- do you pretend you’re a linguistic purist and give it the ol “vee” treatment or simply admit your no-nothing American status and opt for the wubble-yoo sound? But for a while several decades back the guy was quite popular with the urban avant-garde, even though he tended to make you feel somewhat more than slightly suicidal after ingesting one of his unremitting, dismal takes on the nature of modern decadence and the horror of humanity in general. On the other hand, what would be the point of all that intellectual posturing anyway if you could not exit the theater ready to do away with yourself over the sheer awfulness of things??? The world sucks! Enjoy it! Have some babka while you’re at it, that is, if Molly Bloom will let you out of the bakery. . . .