Sausagefest on Haight Street

This weekend was tough to beat, and though it went by much too fast (as usual), I think I came out the other end with a new perspective on a number of things, and I finally watched The Eyes of Laura Mars.

This film is awfully disconcerting, mainly because the actors are so good, yet the script is so UNBELIEVABLY bad. In it, Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) is an eccentric high-fashion photographer who takes shots of scantily-clad models in controversial poses. Glamorous babes lay splayed in pools of blood or viciously catfight while overturned cars burn in the background. Then suddenly, Laura Mars develops the psychic ability to see real murders through the eyes of a killer while the murders are happening. She meets a detective named John (Tommy Lee Jones), who at first doesn't seem to believe in Laura's gift until, suddenly, he does. Decadent models with breasts bared slink around in their underpants. Disco music pulses from New York's hedonistic soul. Faye Dunaway sports a variety of unflattering hats and cumbersome wraps. She sprints down the city streets in high-heeled boots and weird split skirts. Suddenly, she goes for a walk in the woods with the detective, and suddenly, they are madly in love with each other. Her manager with whom she's suddenly very close is murdered, as are the two models who are suddenly lesbians and — suddenly — also very close friends of Laura Mars. Faye Dunaway wrings from this script a masterful scene where she mourns the deaths of her best friends, but soon Laura Mars forgets about them because she's so in love with the detective while being simultaneously terrorized by her own visions, as depicted in the many close-up shots of Faye Dunaway's expressive eyes (see poster, above).

I'd say more, but since you'd never guess the ending, I don't want to spoil it.

But Wait! What About the Sausagefest?


I'll tell you what, it was so cold out last night and S and I had spent much of the afternoon shopping for presents. In search of something to eat and feeling sort of burned out on pizza, we found a place on Haight where they grill a variety of sausages; apple boar, duck and fig, plain old beef, and even vegan. I'm not much of a sausage eater myself, but since the restaurant was fairly empty and the windows were steamed up and lit with a warm yellow glow, in we went to place our orders — two sandwiches "for here." While we waited for our sausages to grill we grabbed a couple of vacant stools near the door, well out of the path to the counter.

I was glad to be in from the damp, nasty street, glad to be able to shut the door behind us. From where we sat we had a great view of the dripping-hot sausages and the orange flames that flared up while they cooked. The restaurant smelled smoky and oily, and there was something homey in the clang of the stainless steel spatula against the charred grill, the scent of fried onion and pepper.

We'd just gotten settled when a couple of men dressed entirely in denim entered the restaurant, leaving the door open to flap in the wind. The draft seeped in through the seams of my coat and I rubbed my arms, praying for the men to finish up so I could slip past them to shut the door. Then several more men spilled in, pushing the door even further open and leaving it that way. After the denim-clad men clarified what they wanted, they backed up until they were standing right in front of our stools. We were completely hemmed in by their massive backs, their shifting buttocks and thick hams. Then two more men entered, and more, and more, and though there were only twelve men in the place at any given time, each man took up the space of three as he shoved up to the counter to order a sausage, or stood in a large block of space facing the grill, or shouldered between the rest of the hulks to plant himself in front of the condiments so no other man could get to them without shoving, too.

Now, what is it about men who so enjoy sausage? Because when our order came up, we — my friend S and I, the only women in the place — had to weave our way between bodies that seemed to have taken root. I mean, even though they could see us coming, not a man in the place was willing to budge.

After struggling around jutting elbows up to the counter to pay, after tripping over a thick network of sprawled legs and clumsy boots, we returned to our stools only to find that the men at whose backs we'd been gazing had planted themselves there in our seats and had apparently turned to oak stumps. So balancing our sandwiches and drinks we strove on to the far end of the restaurant where there were two more empty stools at the end of the row, shoved together in the cramped bit of space that was left, and after clearing the greasy plates and wadded up napkins left by the men who were through with them, we settled into our spot away from the draft seeping in through the door.

Once we'd secured the space that was left to us, we ate in silence while the room full of sausages and men cleared out a little. And once it cleared out and we'd eaten our sandwiches and cleaned up after ourselves as we always do, we realized that we had discovered a well-kept secret: if you, or I, or anyone for that matter is in search of a husband, there's no better place than the sausage restaurant, and it's practically around the corner! O, the romance! It's all so irresistible! You may not know it, but there's plenty of sausage for every woman who wants it, and though she might have to compete with the men to get it (because clearly, men adore eating sausage), what great rewards await us if we are just patient and diligent and stay out of the way!