Psycho

Lurid Love Letters

Last night, I saw an outdoor screening of "Psycho" with some friends in San Jose. As I only remembered the shower scene, I'd forgotten about the opening scene where the camera pans across skyscrapers, pauses at a half-open window - takes a moment to adjust to the black interior - and then pans to the right where a semi-nude couple just completed an intimate lunch-time encounter:

Sam: You never did eat your lunch, did you?
Marion: I'd better get back to the office. These extended lunch hours give my boss excess acid.
Sam: Why don't you call your boss and tell him you're taking the rest of the afternoon off? It's Friday anyway - and hot.
Marion: What do I do with my free afternoon? Walk you to the airport?
Sam: Well, you could laze around here a while longer.
Marion (foreshadowing a future hotel visit): Hmm. Checking out time is 3 pm. Hotels of this sort are interested in you when you come in, but when your time is up. Oh Sam, I hate having to be with you in a place like this.
Sam: Married couples deliberately spend an occasional night in a cheap hotel.
Marion: I know marriage can do a lot of things deliberately.
Sam: You sure talk like a girl who's been married.
Marion: Sam, this is the last time.
Sam: For what?
Marion: For this, meeting you in secret so we can be secretive. You come down here on business trips. We steal lunch hours. I wish you wouldn't even come.
Sam: All right, what do we do instead? Write each other lurid love letters?

It's a fitting scene for a hot summer evening in downtown San Jose. The warm weather always brings out my desire for a summer fling. For now, I'll have to settle for lurid love emails though as everybody seems to be out of town.