lookin' good, skinny

Everything you’ve heard about Polish women is true; they’re beautiful. It’s like walking around a college campus in the spring. But college girls are supposed to be skinny; they’re plagued with anxiety, eating disorders, and vodka sodas. The girls here eat pączkis, they have that relaxed European mentality, and I won’t even get into the amount of mayonnaise they slop on food.

Anna our sound new sound girl (Luka had to leave for another job) eats a pączki every morning. Okay- not every morning. Sometimes, she has a cheese Danish. Yet, she’s still skinnier than 99% of the American population. …How?! At least her diet’s safe with us; we probably burned off ten cheese Danishes yesterday.

We started at City Hall where we got footage of a city counsel meeting. Then we caught a cab to the Cinematography Museum where the President was unveiling a new statue of Polish TV’s most beloved cartoon cat. (Hey- if we can bronze Magic Johnson, they can certainly hold a photo op in front of a cartoon cat). At the museum, we interviewed the man in charge of PR for the city.

Then we spoke to one person who perfectly bridges the gap between Łódź and Detroit… Liliana. A couple months ago, she found our project online and nearly flipped. Born in Łódź, moved to Detroit during high school, and now back in Łódź finishing her masters- she knows both cities inside and out, and she’s even contemplated her own dual-city project for quite some time.

That evening a storm moved in. And as the weather changed, so did the tune of our subjects. One aging artist was almost ready to give up his fight with local government, but an up-starter from the NGO sector couldn’t have been more fired up; she brought a policy smackdown like no other, knocking the President, city hall, and anyone else with voting power. It was raw, it was passionate, and the more she challenged the political gods, the more thunder tried to silence her voice.

…Gods can be so touchy. It rained the rest of the night. …And thank gods it did. We needed to cool off. It had been hotter than hell the past two days, and in a lame attempt to appear professional, Philip and I wore our trendiest skinny jeans- Philip even wore a blazer. Damn those skinny jeans.

Stripped down to shorts and t-shirts, we propped open the balcony door in our fourth floor walk-up and logged the day’s footage as we listened to the rain. It’s times like these I’m glad we don’t have internet.