Just for fun, let's say they met in Chicago some time during the previous century, and to mark the occasion they plan to revisit some of their old haunts after all these years of tying the knot, going back to school, finding jobs, having babies, moving, going back to school again, moving again, putting kids through school, changing jobs, buying a house in the suburbs, blah blah blah.
In this totally fictional movie, the somewhat happy couple is still in the process of making their big romantic anniversary plans during the winter holidays, as they put up a tree, decorate, shop, and cook in their stylishly funky old brick house in Peninsula, Ohio. There they spend Christmas/Solstice with their urbane and bookish adult daughter, Catherine Heigl (or Drew Barrymore), while their punk cartoonist son, Heath Ledger (or Edward Norton), spends the holidays with his anarchist housemates in New York. Anyone see a plausible plot in this?
In the foreground of the unfolding narrative is a hard-working and supportive, if oddball, family who observes the traditional holiday rituals of sitting down to dinner with ethnic foods - lutefisk, lefse, rum and OJ - lighting candles, offering ecumenical blessings to light and darkness, children and families, and opening gifts beside a fresh-cut Noble fir tree, the whole nine yards.
Timely phone calls to and from the prodigal son in Brooklyn and an exchange of FedEx packages of presents - his carefully wrapped in cartoon paper - keep Heath/Edward included in the festivities. But it is Catherine/Drew who provides the glue in this conglomerate celebration of fragmentation and faith. She helps to cook dinner, says the right thing when stress mounts, holds her rapier tongue when Dad says something stupid, and gives amazing and creative gifts of art prints and books to her proud and grateful parents.
In the background, it is apparent that this family's issues have issues. Sissy/Mary is concerned about Heath, who in the recessionary economy has lost his retail bookstore job, which he didn't like much anyway, and is on his own for the holidays, eating take-out sushi on Christmas Eve with his housemates, Kevin Smith and Zoey Deschanel. He is fine, Catherine/Drew assures them, he just isn't sure what he wants to do next, although he's thinking about going to electrician school or raising goats.
To complicate matters further, Edward/Heath has chosen not to join his girlfriend, Parker Posey (or Jeneane Garafalo) in Connecticut for the holidays with her parents, Christopher Reeve and Isabella Rosselini. Donald is experiencing some anxiety at a distance about Parker and Edward's relationship, but Harry knows they'll do what they have to do.
No Capulets and Montegues, no Sharks and Jets, just a typical American family drama. Or comedy, I'm not sure yet. By the way, this is totally fictional, and any resemblance to real persons, past or present, is wholly coincidental.
Meanwhile, back in Ohio, Mary/Sissy spends most of her time knitting and watching "House" while Harry/Donald is content to kill time stacking firewood and reading the New York Times, if he could only remember where he put his glasses. As Christmas passes peacefully, they count their blessings during visits with their old friends, English professor Kevin Kline and art teacher Emma Thompson, who come over for the evening with their college-age kids, summa cum laude GIS cartographer Cate Blanchett and sophomore environmental filmmaker Paul Dano.
Anticipation builds for their trip, and both Harry and Sissy have contradictory feelings, knowing neither they nor Chicago will be the same as they were December 30, 1978. Departure from Peninsula occurs more or less on schedule, but Harry is always uptight prior to a trip, so Sissy humors him. They quickly fall into their travel mode, talking about what a cool movie their trip would make and what actors could play which characters, depending on whether it is a comedy with dramatic moments or a drama with comedic moments, and whether they work with a slick Hollywood studio or an independent outfit - Woody Allen or John Sayles - and how confusing will it be to the audience if different actors play the same character in different scenes? They agree that if it's too fragmented, audiences will be confused as well as bored - too much like real life and not enough like a movie.
As soon as rural Indiana disappears in the rear-view mirror, their conversation turns to what it would be like to move back to Chicago after all these years, but for now, Mary and Donald are caught up in the details of getting where they are going. He is easily distracted, and she has no sense of direction, so navigating is a trip in itself. Somehow they find the Arlington International Hostel in Lincoln Park with no missed exits and no wrong turns.
The near north side close to the lake is an appealing neighborhood, but they doubt whether they could afford the cost of a condo. The hostel is plain but clean and welcoming. Most of the lodgers are younger, and about half speak English with an accent, but somehow they don't feel out of place. Harry Dean goes out to find a place to park the car and can't locate the street suggested by the desk clerk, finally finding a space on a street a few blocks away with ambiguous signage.
It's getting colder, must be the wind-chill, but it's not as late as it seems, must be the change to central time. Donald and Sissy get dressed and go out, looking good if I may say so. They buy two-day CTA passes and catch the El train north to their old neighborhood of Rogers Park. From the Morse station they follow their noses to the Heartland Cafe, still there after all these years.
In fact, Sissy immediately recognized one of the owners, Gary Busey, standing just inside the entrance. When they had found a table, she went to speak to him, and he alerted the other owner, Lily Tomlin, and the three of them had a small reunion remembering working together, creating a community-oriented business, running a marathon, and more recently helping to elect a president.
It took the waiter an eternity to bring the wine, and when Harry had finally taken a sip and toasted their anniversary, he said he had a question, got down on one knee, and asked Mary if she would spend another 30 years with him. She really liked the sparkly ring with tiny diamonds set in a gold six-peteled lotus on a silver band, and she said yes.
Mary and Harry reminisced at length while eating Mexican food and drinking red wine, enjoying espresso with dessert, and paying the bill. On the way out they perused the little general store next door for memorabilia, like T-shirts that said HELP WANTED: REVOLUTIONARIES or Athletes United for Peace. They walked back to the El and the hostel leaning into a fierce north wind.
Next morning there was snow on the ground. Donald and Mary found a great breakfast place, Frances' Deli, around the corner on Clark Street. Excellent challah French toast, decent veggie omelet, superb home fries, and bottomless cups of coffee. A couple of family groups, also eating breakfast, provided a start to an outstanding day of people watching, and they speculated about other people's stories while enacting their own.
After breakfast, walking down the block with the wind, they stopped at a bike shop just as a young guy rode up to unlock the front door. Harry and Mary looked at bikes, and the guy answered their questions about the comparable quality of Trek and Specialized (not much different). Lincoln Park is growing on me. It's like the East Village but 20 pounds heavier. We walked to the Fullerton station to catch the red line to the Loop.
Almost like we knew what we were doing, we got to the Art Institute just in time for a noon talk about Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" in the second-floor gallery it shares with more "modern" paintings. I think the questions raised by the guide - are these characters trapped, complicit, alienated, touching, or just a composition in complementary colors - got our minds and eyes aroused for the next two hours of looking at twentieth-century American painting. I didn't bring a pen or a camera, so I don't recall much except seeing a lot of Columbus's own George Bellows, which was captivating, and learning a little bit about what I like and don't like about Georgia O'Keefe's landscapes (the amazing fluid movement) and figures (bones and flowers, love and death).
We needed a break, so we grabbed our coats and found a Starbuck's at Wabash and Adams to refuel on coffee and cake. Two strangers sitting at the angular counter reminded me of "Nighthawks," so I took a picture, but guess what, it just wasn't the same. Back inside the museum, Donald and Mary headed for the Asian art wing, which seemed to go on and on. If you go straight back from the lobby, you can walk through several thousand years of Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture with mostly Hindu and Buddhist themes. Off to the right is room after room with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ceramics, bronzes, ink paintings, and woodblock prints. Time passes. At the far end is another modern American gallery with a hilarious David Hockney painting of California collectors. It's closing time.
Harry and Mary stopped for a quick swing through the gift shop. Every El station on the way back evoked memories of people and places they once knew like the back of their hands. Heath called while they were getting ready to go out to dinner, and he sounded great. He and Parker were dressing up as dinosaurs in preparation for the New Year's Eve party at his house in Brooklyn. Nine bands were going to play, one of them dressed as cavement, and the grand finale at midnight would be a papier mache volcano erupting in confetti.
Our New Year's Eve would be a little more sedate: a nice dinner followed by a band at the Heartland. Without a dinner reservation, Donald didn't know whether they could get a table at the Basil Leaf, up the street at Clark and Arlington, but they were in luck. There was only a short wait, just enough time for a drink at the bar, and from the bread and wine to the smoked salmon over fettucini, the food was spectacular. By the time they had taken their boxed leftovers back to the hostel, Harry and Sissy were a little too tired and tipsy to get back on the train and head north for music and dancing, so they called it a night.
New Year's morning was an absolutely clear blue sky as we walked to Starbuck's on Clark Street with a front-row seat to watch Lincoln Park runners, cyclists, workers, and dog-walkers take on 2009. Speaking for myself, Harry Dean Stanton felt right at home among the young, old, rich, poor, loud, studious, rough, and sophisticated Chicagoans starting their engines with a hot cup of joe.
Harry and Sissy had no plans except brunch in the suburbs with their friends Tim Robbins and Kyra Sedgwick, who recently moved to Chicago from Cleveland. It's a quick drive out I-90 past O'Hare to Mt. Prospect, the tidy, tree-lined community where Tim is the new minister at the American Baptist Church.
Kyra chopped garlic and cooked fritata while we caught up on their move, the history and challenges of their new congregation, and the many things they love about their new place. They caught up on our Chicago adventure and the ongoing adventures of Edward/Heath and Drew/Catherine, whom Kyra has known since they were in preschool. They showed us around their house, then took us across the street to the beautiful little Greek-revival church.
We still had six hours to drive, so it was time to go. Sorry that we couldn't have touched base with more people in about 48 hours, we hit the road with a full head of steam and didn't really get tired until somewhere around Lafayette, Indiana, the site of another would-be movie, seemingly in another lifetime and involving other characters. Luckily my Starbuck's gift card still had some value on it, and a little more caffeine kept us driving and making up stories, like the completely imaginary one above, all the way home.
