I don’t know about my friends and relations who support Trump or Trump’s “programs” these days. They have become relatively silent, so I do not know what they are thinking. I did watch a bit of Trump in Europe over the past few days. I noted two things that seemed to me to be a bit different.

For one thing, he looked exhausted. Big bags under his tired looking eyes. Even a fresh coat of yellow in his hair and paste on his face could not make him look anything other than worn out. For another, when I watched his press conference yesterday, which went on interminably, he sounded manic during his presentation (speaking much faster than usual, his voice pitched a bit higher, breathing every two sentences rather than every sentence), and during the question period from the journalists, he sounded less sharp in his answers, again what I thought were signs of exhaustion.

No reason to go over everything in what is apparently a Memorandum of Misunderstanding between the U.S. and Iran. Lawrence O’Donnell last night made the most important point, I think. The MOM begins with a sentence that says that the two parties will “refrain from the use or threat of force against each other”. Trump violated that first sentence before the ink was dry (or whatever the electronic version of dry ink would be), when he said that if Iran tried to impose fees or charges on ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, he would simply “bomb them”. And things got worth from there.

So it appears that the United States will leave the Strait of Hormuz, will end sanctions on Iran (over a time period to be determined), will guarantee that there will be $300 billion to repair war damage in Iran, will release many billions of dollars of frozen Iranian money, will allow oil exports from Iran, will exert no control over Iranian missiles or delivery systems, will not move to restructure the Iranian government or provide any democratic or civil rights to the Iranian people, etc., etc. In the meantime, the United States will spend millions or probably billions of additional taxpayer dollars to restore our military hardware after using so much up in the war. From the perspective of the United States and of Iran, this is a lose-win situation.

As to 60 days of negotiations between the two countries, does it really make a difference as to what will be decided (or not decided)? The MOM says that Iran will refrain from charging boats in the Strait for 60 days; Trump says that means that they never will (or we will, as said above, bomb them). It says nothing about them supporting their proxies. Trump says but they won’t support them…..or we will take military action against Iran.

The United States and Iran are going to talk about how to dispose of the current stock of enriched uranium, and Iran says what it has always said: that it will not develop or procure nuclear weapons. There are no restrictions on Iran having a peaceful nuclear energy program.

Tired Trump will have a hard time explaining all of this here at home. From the look of things, J.D. better start preparing for his short presidency.

Let’s change the subject.

Once a month, the Avalon Theater (our community owned movie theater) has a French film. Last night, the film for June was Deux Femmes (Two Women), which had won an award at Sundance. So we went to see it.

We didn’t really research it; it just seemed like a good idea. But disappointment developed quickly when we learned that the film was not French. It was “in French”, but the movie was filmed in Montreal. They may speak French in Montreal, but Montreal is a Canadian city, not a French city. Was this false advertising? Or should we have read beyond the Sundance award line?

French films are always (no matter the subject) imbued with French culture. This is what makes almost all French films worth watching. This film seemed to have been purposely made to avoid all culture. Yes, they spoke French. Yes, Montreal is a French speaking city. And, yes, I am sure that Montreal has its share of culture indigenous to the city, but this film reflected none of it. In fact, you only knew you were in Montreal because of the some time background skyline.

The majority of the film took place in the ugliest cooperative housing development in the world. There were two neighboring families – one with a 10 year old and one with a baby. The father of the baby was having an affair with a woman from work; the father of the ten year old was not having an affair with anyone, including his wife. The women decided that the world was passing them by and monogamy was not for them (in fact, that it was invented) and they were going to change their lives.

Digression: It was Dorothy Parker, wasn’t it, who had a dream one night, woke up and scribbled something on a note pad by her bed, went back to sleep and in the morning saw what she had written: Men are monogamous, women polygamous? End of digression.

So the women had sex with the plumber, the exterminator, the cable guy, and the house cleaner. And it was all (to the viewer, or at least to these two viewers) pretty boring.

Why do I say there was no culture? Because you know nothing about these four people (or any others). What was their background? How did they earn a living? Did they have any other friends or relatives? Nothing.

One more thing about Deux Femmes. It was only 100 minutes long. But it felt like it was three hours. That’s a trick in and of itself.