Seventy percent of adventure is just showing up, or, in this case, having an obsessive friend who lives in the middle of nowhere and can’t quite live out his dreams the way he wants.
Backstory: The new The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie is coming out soon. This is the one in English, but still takes place in Sweden (which is pretty annoying), and I was a bit indifferent toward until I actually saw the trailer. Then I realized that I was actually going to, potentially, live a different kind of dream.
Backstory to the different type of dream that I’m living: I can’t be the only person this has happened to. Remember when you were younger, and you’d get an album that was like the soundtrack to your life? You loved it, every song; it fit together seamlessly like a puzzle that’s worth framing and you eagerly anticipated the new album from that same band. The new album comes out, and the band has started “growing” and “experimenting” and while it may sound ok, it’s just not the same. That’s when you realize that what you actually wanted was not for this band to evolve, but to write a second album that sounds essentially the same, but one that has different lyrics to sing along to and different hooks to marvel at. But that never happens.
Except when there’s an English version of an already solid movie trilogy that not only stars talented folk, but is directed by someone who has made me happy in the past… this could be my second Silverchair/Bush/insert another band from 1994-1999 that had a shitty second album-album that doesn’t suck.
Where the obsessive friend comes in has to do with a contest that this film has been running that I was unaware of until around 12:20pm November 21st when Joe frantically emailed me a google map and said “There’s a “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” scavenger hunt taking place across the world. Today it’s in your town. GO!” He told me to go to the location on the map, which is about a block from my house, find the instructions, follow them and I would be rewarded with a kick ass prize.
So I wandered down to this old call box across the street from the video store not really expecting to find anything. There was a tiny envelope duct taped to the side of the box, and inside was this note:
Something about the use of the word package immediately made me feel like I was in a spy movie. Everyone out and about in the neighborhood was immediately suspect, and I imagined that all of my running and purchasing sensible shoes would finally come in handy. In reality, I walked quickly and without incident to The Curatorium and told the proprietor that I was there for the package.
He looked stunned and laughed, “I was really wondering if someone would actually come for this!” We chatted briefly and a red-headed man came into the store. “You’re just in time” the proprietor told him, “she just showed up.”
“I know,”the red-headed man said, “I was watching.” Then he looked at me, “You were a woman on a mission.”
Clearly my paranoia was justified as I was, in fact, being followed.
The package, was actually a piece of art used in the movie:
Made to look like it had been sent to the person it was sent to in the movie–duh.
And this was inside:
I think it’s a juniper? I have no clue, but it’s cool, came with David Fincher’s autograph, and a certificate saying that this is #20 out of 40 total–the only one in existence. Here’s everything else that has and will be found–mine’s in the upper left.
This whole experience was made all the more surreal by the fact that I wasn’t feeling well, hadn’t eaten, and had a fever.
I am the official owner of movie nerd gold. Please don’t rob my house.
7 comments
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November 22, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Nicole
Wowzah! The unpeeled layers of splendidness from this magical onion of a story are all over my floor and I am truly amazed.
November 22, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Librarian About Town
You are braver than Lisbeth herself, to ask for “the package” at The Curatorium.
November 23, 2011 at 3:38 pm
sarah
wow!!!! that’s so fricken’ fun!! i have read the first 2 books and am really excited to see the movie!
November 24, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Brandi Rae
I love the Curatorium. I’m actually quite jealous of your mini spy novel type adventure.
November 27, 2011 at 4:03 pm
mchichester
COOL! What a great story!
November 27, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Spygirl
I have so many random thoughts about this post I’m just going to start listing them:
1. OMG, I can’t believe you have one of the framed flowers. And that you got it via a spy-like treasure hunt. If you ever don’t want it anymore, you know where to send it.
2.I love how you included the fact that there was a red-headed man. That makes the whole thing even more preposterous/adventurous.
3. Have you seen the Muppet movie trailer that spoofs this trailer? The Pig with the Froggy Tattoo: http://youtu.be/QHqLcEtt368
4. I can’t decide if I really want to encourage English-speaking remakes of perfectly good foreign language films by going to see this one, but I kinda want to see it.
5. I started re-reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo this week, but not because of the movie. It just haunted me and I had to read it again.
November 29, 2011 at 1:18 am
Andria
1. I know, right!?!?!?!
2. Detail is everything
3. I hadn’t, and that’s awesome
4. Yeah, it’s annoying, but I guess it’s been done before (though I can only think of Vanilla Sky, which was not good).
5. I should read that again, but I may wait until after the movie.