Thursday, March 18, 2010

Winners and Losers

You can’t escape Oscar fever in Los Angeles. Even the flower stand at the neighborhood market I visited the day before the big ceremony was getting into the action with a special Oscar contest. Simply fill out a ballot of the most popular categories (think Best Actress, not Best Live Action Short Film), and the top 10 predictors win a dozen roses. As I turned mine in (with France’s Un Prophète selected to win Best Foreign Language Film, of course), I jokingly told the vendor he had the winning ballot right here.

Sure, I had made an effort to see as many Oscar films as possible in the run-up to my trip, but I know as much about film as someone who lives in L.A. probably knows about pocket vetoes. So imagine my surprise when I received a voice mail from the flower stand telling me I had indeed won the dozen roses and would I kindly stop by to collect them sometime in the next three months. Chouette!!!

But wait, when did I receive this voice mail? Mais, oui…When I checked my phone after landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ooops, bad timing for the flowers! Sorry :-D

Must be fun to see the Oscar atmosphere.