Intoxicating Unavailability Poem by gershon hepner

Intoxicating, unavailability,

hallmark of Almighty

God, provides Him with the instability

of love and Aphrodite.

Both He and Aphrodite would be unassailable

if they would meet us when

we need them, but they both are unavailable

to all who pray and men

whose love is just beyond their reach, which makes them in-

dispensible, we think,

when we’re inclined to worship or to turn to sin,

and, having failed, to drink.



Inspired by the phrase “intoxicating unavailability” that Rachel Abramowitz uses to describe Scarlett Johanssen, whom Woody Allen chose to star in his movie “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” because of this quality (“Next Stop, Barcelona: Woody Allen tries Spain on for size. For comedy it’s a good fit, ” LA Times, August 10,2008) :



When a Spanish company, Mediapro, approached him with the proposition to finance a film in Barcelona, the writer-director basically thought, “Why not? ” “Barcelona is a city that I can live in very easily, ” he says. “If they mentioned some city in the Ukraine or the Sudan or something, I would have said no. But Barcelona is a beautiful, wonderful city.” While New York City is a character in many of his films, Allen had never specifically written a movie for a locale, but his task got easier when he received a call out of the blue from Cruz, who asked if she could come meet and visit him. 'And when I saw her, I thought, 'My God, she's––if you can believe this ––more beautiful in person than she is on the screen.' I thought she was so beautiful it took my breath away.' Cruz told him that she'd love to be in his Barcelona film and by the time she left, 'I would have given her all the furniture, you know? ' Allen heard through channels that Bardem was also interested. 'I thought, 'OK, I have these two great tempestuous Spaniards and Barcelona, but I don't have a film.’” Throughout the year, Allen jots down ideas for films on scraps of paper and matchbooks and throws them into a big drawer. In the case of 'Vicky Christina Barcelona, ' he used an idea he once had about two girls going on vacation in San Francisco. He transported the story to Barcelona and added Johansson, who's become a staple in his films of late, as a totem of youth, of intoxicating unavailability. He began to mold the characters to his cast and, when filming, he never talked to the actors, other than to give them stage directions.

8/12/08