Guido, Guido, Guido! 

I was counting down the last 24 hours of my five-day Christmas visit to Cleveland to see my family.  It was a quiet Sunday afternoon and a soft snow was falling. After an anxiety-filled four days, I was feeling mellow, knowing that I would be flying back to Nashville the next day, and I was really looking forward to being on vacation at home for the rest of the week.  I was planning on doing some cooking and baking and having a quiet New Year's Eve at home with Jim.

My mother had wanted us to see the recently-restored Capitol Theater on 65th and Detroit, where she had gone to see movies as a young girl and as a teenager.  They were showing Nine, so Mom,  my sister, Jim and I set out for the 5:oo show, planning on getting a bite to eat afterwards.

The theater was lovely - a true neighborhood movie house, and a nice contrast to the characterless megaplexes that show a dozen movies at a time.  It had a large downstairs theater and the former balcony had been converted into two smaller theaters upstairs.

As for the movie itself, my feelings are mixed.  After his two recent roles - as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood and Bill Cutting in Gangs of New York - it was a pleasure to see Daniel Day-Lewis as a character who, while still larger than life, didn't confound, frighten or repulse me.  Even though Guido Contini is, as his wife describes him, "nothing more than an appetite", he is  also a human being as opposed to a caricature, a man who needs to create and is afraid that he just can't do it anymore.  The last scene, as he embraces his innocence and begins anew, from his heart, is very moving.

However, as a movie musical, I don't know if Nine can quite stand on its own.  I didn't feel that any of the songs were particularly memorable, and some of the sets and choreography were simply too much like Chicago. Once you've seen a bunch of women writhing on chairs in lingerie and lace-up boots, the impact of seeing it again is somewhat diminished.  The actors all performed their numbers well, although there was precious little actual dancing.  And even what little there was seemed to be more of a product of skillful editing than anything else.

I also thought that Fergie as Saraghina was simply too pretty and sexy for the part.  (I will admit that I haven't seen 8 1/2 in its entirety, but I think that this particular scene in Nine, at least, may have ventured too far from the source material.  Here is the original.  If you've seen Nine, you be the judge.)

And Kate Hudson?  Why?  (She must have a very good agent.)

Still, I enjoyed it overall very much.  It was visually stunning, well acted and edited, and had me feeling satisfied at the closing credits.  And this is where my story takes a turn for the worse.  

The exact sequence of the next set of events remains a mystery to me.

Upon leaving the theater, you make a sharp turn into a short hallway and go down a small set of stairs before exiting into the second-floor lounge area.  Perhaps I was still fantasizing about driving along the Italian coast with Daniel/Guido in a powder blue Alfa Romeo.  More than likely, though, it was just my middle-aged eyes adjusting from the dark to the light.

Whatever the reason, I completely misjudged the depth of the first step and my right foot buckled under me.  The rest is a kind of dream sequence, in which images are simultaneously extremely vivid, and yet impossible to describe.   I received no reprieve from the laws of gravity and momentum, which worked as they always must.  I was a body in motion, an irresistible force, and could only be stopped by the closest immovable object -- the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

After my final ::thud::, I was absolutely stunned.  Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.  I tried to get up, convinced that I was just shaken, but couldn't seem to get any traction.  I began to take a mental inventory of all my parts.  Right foot:  check.  Left foot:  check.  Right leg:  check.  Left leg:  check  Back:  check.  Neck:  check.  Head:  check.  Right arm:  check. Left arm:  nothing.  Left arm?  Houston, we have a problem.

My mother and Jim, who were both a short distance behind me, have described the sickening sight of seeing me sprawled out, unmoving, on the floor. Neither one of them knew what had happened, and Jim started yelling for people to get out of the way.  The only way to do that was to step over me, and by this point, I had my wits about me enough to start feeling embarrassed. My sister tried to help me up by taking hold of my left arm, and I yelped in pain.

I eventually got myself upright, although I'm pretty sure I was in a state of shock.  My left arm was hanging limply straight down at my side.  It felt very swollen and I was completely unable to bend it.  For some reason, I kept thinking, "I really like this jacket.  I hope they don't have to cut it off me."

In order to get out of the theater, we had to go down another huge staircase, which, needless to say, was one of the scariest parts of the whole night.  Theater employees were nervously milling about, probably thinking that dreaded word:  lawsuit.

That beautiful soft snow from earlier in the evening had turned into several inches of accumulation, making the streets a treacherous mess. Fortunately, my mother's condo was a straight shot down Detroit, where we dropped her off, along with my sister, switched cars, and drove the short distance to the Lakewood Hospital ER.

After registering, we were put into an exam room and I had to get undressed from the waist up.  Luckily my jacket and sweater came off easily.  The turtleneck body suit was a different story, however.  Probably not the best choice, considering how the day turned out.  When I finally got a look at my weirdly misshapen elbow, I began to feel a little panicky. But then I realized that it most likely wasn't broken.  The subsequent x-rays confirmed what Jim and I both suspected.

Not my x-ray, but close enough.

You are looking at a dislocated elbow.  The force of my fall had popped the joint out of place, which is why I couldn't bend it.

I was told that the doctor would be along shortly to reduce my arm.  Reduce?  Why not "relocate", I wondered?  Also, I had no idea how painful it was going to be.  I had a vague recollection of an episode of ER, where Dr. Carter fixed someone's dislocated shoulder.  I remembered a loud scream, but also that the person seemed pretty normal almost immediately afterward.  I decided to be brave.

However, it turned out not to be necessary.  I was treated to the Michael Jackson drug, Propofol (also referred to as "milk of amnesia"), and was out,"reduced", and back around in a matter of minutes.  Unfortunately, I was put in a sort of half-cast and sling, which I am still wearing until I see the orthopedic specialist tomorrow.  (Yes, I have typed this whole blog using only one hand.)

So, there were three things to be thankful for:  (1) it was my left arm that was injured, and I am right-handed and am therefore still reasonably functional; (2) nothing was broken; and (3) we were in and out of the ER in under three hours - a true Christmas miracle! 

The flight back home on Monday was memorable only for the fact that I got to get on the plane first - probably the only advantage to being injured. I was just really glad to get home, and glad that, if this had to happen, it happened at the end of my visit, rather than the beginning.

And there you have my review of Nine, along with the thrilling story of my unfortunate accident.  I think I'm going to contact Daniel Day-Lewis and tell him about it.  Perhaps he'll send flowers or even call.  But if I'm really lucky, he'll make a personal appearance and reenact my favorite scene from The Last of the Mohicans.  Be sure to bring your leather stockings and your musket, Daniel!  Ciao!