Public and Private Living: From Dystopia to the Bomb Shelter
Our health as a society is as bad as health care for the individual. The public persona includes unhealthy behavior such as distrust, suspicion, hostility, aggression (active and passive).
I did come across one abstract from a book called Stigma—Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman.
“Stigma is an illuminating excursion into the situation of persons who are unable to conform to standards that society calls normal. Disqualified from full social acceptance, they are stigmatized individuals. Physically deformed people, ex-mental patients, drug addicts, prostitutes, or those ostracized for other reasons [my emphasis] must constantly strive to adjust to their precarious social identities. Their image of themselves must daily confront and be affronted by the image which others reflect back to them.
Drawing extensively on autobiographies and case studies, sociologist Erving Goffman analyzes the stigmatized person's feelings about himself and his relationship to "normals" He explores the variety of strategies stigmatized individuals employ to deal with the rejection of others, and the complex sorts of information about themselves they project. In Stigma the interplay of alternatives the stigmatized individual must face every day is brilliantly examined by one of America's leading social analysts.”
What does the outside world look like to the disturbed? Or is the question how does the outside disturbed world look to individuals trying to maintain their sanity?
I want this page devoted to lighter subjects. Well, sort of. I am not going in order but after Politics/Government and Health Care, I feel like adopting the persona of the recluse, hermit, misanthrope, getting away from it all. This page is divided into two distinct sections: 1) how to survive going out in public. It ain’t easy. These are layman’s observations. Because of the current economic climate, people are more tense, driven, aggressive, and even hostile, and the art of civility is certainly a lost one. I understand the recluse. However, there are necessities: groceries, going to work if you’re employed, the bank, and other various and sundry tasks. 2) how to get away from it all without really going anywhere: the new word entered in Merriam-Webster “staycation.” I have my own ritual which is described farther on.
Going Out in Public
Americans have become more insular. (retreating to Innerspace: a girl falls in an open manhole while texting). Everyone is on their cell phones while driving, oblivious to the hazards created by such a distraction. On foot, we stare at the sidewalk (unless we’re texting), avoiding eye contact because we feel threatened and expect to be. I carry a notebook with me. I keep one in the car where I often get inspiration, so I jot something down at a red light. I guess that’s texting, old school.
Of course there’s harmless chit-chat with a store clerk, which sometime elicits a smile. But if we have to deal with organizational structure then we pretty much have entered the twilight zone and become outsiders. Like the episode where the woman was having plastic surgery to correct her ugliness. She in fact to the audience looked perfectly normal while everyone else had pig faces.
Going Out in Public
Americans have become more insular. (retreating to Innerspace: a girl falls in an open manhole while texting). Everyone is on their cell phones while driving, oblivious to the hazards created by such a distraction. On foot, we stare at the sidewalk (unless we’re texting), avoiding eye contact because we feel threatened and expect to be. I carry a notebook with me. I keep one in the car where I often get inspiration, so I jot something down at a red light. I guess that’s texting, old school.
Of course there’s harmless chit-chat with a store clerk, which sometime elicits a smile. But if we have to deal with organizational structure then we pretty much have entered the twilight zone and become outsiders. Like the episode where the woman was having plastic surgery to correct her ugliness. She in fact to the audience looked perfectly normal while everyone else had pig faces.
Edvard Munch
Much of what goes on “out there” either makes no sense or becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. Just this past week I had several appointments and there was a problem or some inscrutable outcome for every one of them. Remember Burt? (See Health Care). He’s not real keen on driving so I drive him to some of his appointments. Recently, his Medicaid benefits allegedly started offering dental and eye care:
Saturday: he has an eye exam scheduled. Thirty minutes before we were to leave, the office calls to say their computers are down and they can’t get authorization. It gets rescheduled a week later.
Tuesday: The AC in my 2002 Celica stopped working. It’s July in south Florida. I take it in for service in the morning, wait three hours and they tell me they can’t find anything wrong. Thinking I’m back to square one with that problem I get in the car to discover that the AC is now working fine. That afternoon my friend Burt has a scheduled 2:30 appointment with the drive-through psychiatrist (see Health Care). The day before the office calls to confirm his 1:45 appointment. ????? We go together and wait over two hours. That’s a total of five hours waiting for services.
Wednesday: Burt has a dentist appointment scheduled, confirmed and all. When we arrive, he is turned away. They made a mistake. They don’t take his insurance after all.
Thursday: I have to drive another friend to her dentist because the procedures require heavy sedation and she can’t drive herself afterwards.
Friday: Open. Not exactly. Sometimes the twilight zone comes to you. Snail-mail. I tell everyone I receive only four types of mail: bills, junk mail, Netflix DVDs, and problems. On a recent Friday, a letter from the county courthouse arrives threatening me with appearing before a judge. I had volunteered to be Burt’s legal guardian. There is an annual accounting plan which an attorney prepares for Burt and we sign. The attorney then files with the court. Apparently some documents are missing. The tone of the letter is as if I’m some lowlife attempting to cheat Burt out of his meager assets while I keep him chained in the basement.
There’s a scene in the film version of Kafka’s The Trial. Men appear at the protagonist’s apartment and tell him “you’re under arrest.” “What have I done?” “You know what you did.” Yes, things are described as Kafkaesque far too often so that it has become an empty cliché. But there are times….
Saturday: the rescheduled eye exam (we’ll see). This is not a wildly atypical week.
Common Encounters
Supermarkets: more than twenty years ago when I moved to Florida, these stores would have workers stocking shelves before the store opened. Not so anymore. They can be there anytime, blocking the aisles with their laden carts. Sullen, they avoid eye contact (like we all do on the sidewalk), and some are just this side of surly. In recent years, they’ve added the SUV carts for mothers with small children. I like it when the kids are playing with toy cell phones. Ever see two people conversing while their carts are angled to block the aisle like the flippers in a pinball machine?
Ever get in a long line which takes its old sweet time and then you notice no one comes behind you? If the lines get too short, the checkout clerk or bank teller is taken off their station (it must be in the procedure manual). Do you like the old ladies with the coupons who then count out the change they owe penny by penny. How about when the guy ahead of you in the bagel shop wants a dozen bagels and then points, “One of these, one of those, wait no, one of these instead…”
Dark glasses work well because they can partially conceal your expressions of disdain, outrage, and incredulity, however they are not a good idea in banks and liquor stores. Ever see someone use a credit card to buy a pack of gum? I use a credit card occasionally and always pay off the balance. I owe nothing. Zero debt. However I’ve had so-called financial whizzes tell me that carrying some debt is sound personal fiscal policy. They may be right in the sense that people with credit card debt have a higher credit rating than I do. So much for being responsible and not spending beyond my means. What lessons and messages does that send to young adults? The Empire doesn’t have to do everything. Teach people, by embedding in the consumerist culture, to impoverish themselves.
Remember the SUV carts? What about “toy credit cards”. Check out the following link from consumerist.com. The report is entitled, Barbie Teaches Credit Cards 101: "You Never Run Out Of Money!" Think about that. Teach people to impoverish themselves.
In our culture, when we hear of empire, we might think of Darth Vader, all-powerful and always outwardly menacing. The leader of the Empire which rules over us would be the antithesis of Vader: a mealy-mouthed used car salesman with a checkered blazer, eternally smiling, hand-shaking, back-patting, selling us snake-oil. He could order a hit, however, and make Congress dance naked if he wanted.
A debit card is much more responsible and convenient. It’s like spending cash in real time. I could never understand why anyone would use a credit card for perishable goods such as a meal out or gasoline. It’s gone by the time the bill comes.
All right, I sound like a cantankerous curmudgeon, like Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. My favorite quote from him: “There’s nothing common about common sense.”
Now, it’s time to leave, to head out. Here’s a selection from my novel, Downtime. The main character, Mel, lives in New York City and walks to work, a process fraught with peril:
"Mel had not been paying attention to where he was going. So, he suddenly found himself face to face with one of the many prophets of doom, the other class of sidewalk denizen, who haunted the streets. An old grizzled black man in a torn flannel shirt with spittle in the corner of his mouth hovered uncertainly and blocked Mel’s path. The man peered at Mel, not like he was the average passerby, but more like the angel of death come for him who sermonized the deaf masses in the street, those who would not believe the end was near. Melford did not believe the end was near; he believed it to be in progress. The old man shook a cardboard sign at him like it was a magic charm when he became convinced that Mel posed no threat. In fact, a sarcastic smirk even slowly spread across his ragged features as he eyed Mel from head to foot. The sign read “AMAGEDIN IS NYE” in cramped and sloppy handwriting.
Melford grinned and said weakly, “You’re right. I couldn’t agree with you more.” This was probably the worst thing he could have done, and it occurred to him, but he couldn’t stop the words. Suddenly, the old man took on a completely different aspect. He was no longer the prophet of doom, beckoning to all who would listen from his timeless stance. He now became familiar in his setting: representative of a harassed race trapped in the decadent city with its modern urban blight.
“Hey, man, what you fuckin’ around wid me for? Don’ give me none of yo’ shit. I ain’t botherin’ nobody.” Mel turned white and tried to step around. “Hey man, what you fuckin’ around wid me for?” Mel thought the man would keep repeating those three short sentences until the recording short‑circuited right there on the sidewalk. Mel continued, his head lowered even more than before. The old man stood his ground where his path had been blocked, now muttering unintelligibly, a little microorganism having grazed a similar species floating in a faceless sea. The little round creature would turn and turn until some other encounter disturbed this pause and sent it spiraling on where it would meet many but know none.
Melford Blintze hardly dared to breathe a sigh of relief as he neared his office…. A spasm of anxiety raced icily through his bowels when a pretzel wagon rounded a corner and nearly ran him over. The vendor clutched his cell phone tightly, sputtering garbled phrases into it. He averted the collision and felt secure for a long instant, but this gave way as it always did. The dilapidated exterior of hot white concrete, pigeon excrement baked on its surface, gleamed in the sun for an instant as Melford escaped his mounting agoraphobia. Even now, new fears amassed at the pit of his stomach and the dark corners of his brain danced with the anticipation of urbane conflicts of office society, the thin masks of polite words and overt consideration which concealed man’s basic cruelty and self‑servicing nature. There were many pitfalls and hazards on this first leg of his daily journey. Now, he would deal with those of confinement, an all too finite universe in which the predictability of irrational behavior gave absolutely no sense of preparation for it.”…paging Dilbert.
Engage your interest? Check out my Downtime page.
Re-read the italicized text at the end. Chris Boutet, Financial Post, July 17, 2009, wrote about a new book called I Hate People by Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon.
“From the backstabbing corporate ladder-climber, to the naysaying "devil’s advocate" who tears down every new idea, to the guy who just won’t shut up about the latest "hilarious" YouTube video he saw, there are no shortage of characters in the modern workplace just waiting to obstruct, irritate, annoy or otherwise trash your day. That is, if you resign yourself to let them.”
In their new business book, I Hate People!, authors Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon offer a road map for beleaguered office-dwellers who yearn to break free from the endless meetings and frustrating interactions that derail their career ambitions—or, as the authors put it, "kick loose from the overbearing and underhanded jerks at work and get what you want out of your job."
That pretty much covers the workplace, the office, the cubicle farms, etc. I first learned of this book by a friend. She’s reading it now and I told her to give it to me when she’s done. So, outside the workplace, but still outside….
Strategies for Venturing Out
Adopt a fierce persona. Look psychotic. Talk to yourself. Suddenly laugh for no reason.
If forced to go to a Walmart (like for cheap prescription drugs), pop a xanax first. Wouldn’t you feel uneasy in a leper colony?
The best “public” face I have ever seen is by actor Paul Giamatti in a film called American Splendor (2003). The film is not about this topic, but just look at that face. Would you hassle this guy? The scene here also depicts the shopping checkout line frustration alluded to earlier.
Saturday: he has an eye exam scheduled. Thirty minutes before we were to leave, the office calls to say their computers are down and they can’t get authorization. It gets rescheduled a week later.
Tuesday: The AC in my 2002 Celica stopped working. It’s July in south Florida. I take it in for service in the morning, wait three hours and they tell me they can’t find anything wrong. Thinking I’m back to square one with that problem I get in the car to discover that the AC is now working fine. That afternoon my friend Burt has a scheduled 2:30 appointment with the drive-through psychiatrist (see Health Care). The day before the office calls to confirm his 1:45 appointment. ????? We go together and wait over two hours. That’s a total of five hours waiting for services.
Wednesday: Burt has a dentist appointment scheduled, confirmed and all. When we arrive, he is turned away. They made a mistake. They don’t take his insurance after all.
Thursday: I have to drive another friend to her dentist because the procedures require heavy sedation and she can’t drive herself afterwards.
Friday: Open. Not exactly. Sometimes the twilight zone comes to you. Snail-mail. I tell everyone I receive only four types of mail: bills, junk mail, Netflix DVDs, and problems. On a recent Friday, a letter from the county courthouse arrives threatening me with appearing before a judge. I had volunteered to be Burt’s legal guardian. There is an annual accounting plan which an attorney prepares for Burt and we sign. The attorney then files with the court. Apparently some documents are missing. The tone of the letter is as if I’m some lowlife attempting to cheat Burt out of his meager assets while I keep him chained in the basement.
There’s a scene in the film version of Kafka’s The Trial. Men appear at the protagonist’s apartment and tell him “you’re under arrest.” “What have I done?” “You know what you did.” Yes, things are described as Kafkaesque far too often so that it has become an empty cliché. But there are times….
Saturday: the rescheduled eye exam (we’ll see). This is not a wildly atypical week.
Common Encounters
Supermarkets: more than twenty years ago when I moved to Florida, these stores would have workers stocking shelves before the store opened. Not so anymore. They can be there anytime, blocking the aisles with their laden carts. Sullen, they avoid eye contact (like we all do on the sidewalk), and some are just this side of surly. In recent years, they’ve added the SUV carts for mothers with small children. I like it when the kids are playing with toy cell phones. Ever see two people conversing while their carts are angled to block the aisle like the flippers in a pinball machine?
Ever get in a long line which takes its old sweet time and then you notice no one comes behind you? If the lines get too short, the checkout clerk or bank teller is taken off their station (it must be in the procedure manual). Do you like the old ladies with the coupons who then count out the change they owe penny by penny. How about when the guy ahead of you in the bagel shop wants a dozen bagels and then points, “One of these, one of those, wait no, one of these instead…”
Dark glasses work well because they can partially conceal your expressions of disdain, outrage, and incredulity, however they are not a good idea in banks and liquor stores. Ever see someone use a credit card to buy a pack of gum? I use a credit card occasionally and always pay off the balance. I owe nothing. Zero debt. However I’ve had so-called financial whizzes tell me that carrying some debt is sound personal fiscal policy. They may be right in the sense that people with credit card debt have a higher credit rating than I do. So much for being responsible and not spending beyond my means. What lessons and messages does that send to young adults? The Empire doesn’t have to do everything. Teach people, by embedding in the consumerist culture, to impoverish themselves.
Remember the SUV carts? What about “toy credit cards”. Check out the following link from consumerist.com. The report is entitled, Barbie Teaches Credit Cards 101: "You Never Run Out Of Money!" Think about that. Teach people to impoverish themselves.
In our culture, when we hear of empire, we might think of Darth Vader, all-powerful and always outwardly menacing. The leader of the Empire which rules over us would be the antithesis of Vader: a mealy-mouthed used car salesman with a checkered blazer, eternally smiling, hand-shaking, back-patting, selling us snake-oil. He could order a hit, however, and make Congress dance naked if he wanted.
A debit card is much more responsible and convenient. It’s like spending cash in real time. I could never understand why anyone would use a credit card for perishable goods such as a meal out or gasoline. It’s gone by the time the bill comes.
All right, I sound like a cantankerous curmudgeon, like Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. My favorite quote from him: “There’s nothing common about common sense.”
Now, it’s time to leave, to head out. Here’s a selection from my novel, Downtime. The main character, Mel, lives in New York City and walks to work, a process fraught with peril:
"Mel had not been paying attention to where he was going. So, he suddenly found himself face to face with one of the many prophets of doom, the other class of sidewalk denizen, who haunted the streets. An old grizzled black man in a torn flannel shirt with spittle in the corner of his mouth hovered uncertainly and blocked Mel’s path. The man peered at Mel, not like he was the average passerby, but more like the angel of death come for him who sermonized the deaf masses in the street, those who would not believe the end was near. Melford did not believe the end was near; he believed it to be in progress. The old man shook a cardboard sign at him like it was a magic charm when he became convinced that Mel posed no threat. In fact, a sarcastic smirk even slowly spread across his ragged features as he eyed Mel from head to foot. The sign read “AMAGEDIN IS NYE” in cramped and sloppy handwriting.
Melford grinned and said weakly, “You’re right. I couldn’t agree with you more.” This was probably the worst thing he could have done, and it occurred to him, but he couldn’t stop the words. Suddenly, the old man took on a completely different aspect. He was no longer the prophet of doom, beckoning to all who would listen from his timeless stance. He now became familiar in his setting: representative of a harassed race trapped in the decadent city with its modern urban blight.
“Hey, man, what you fuckin’ around wid me for? Don’ give me none of yo’ shit. I ain’t botherin’ nobody.” Mel turned white and tried to step around. “Hey man, what you fuckin’ around wid me for?” Mel thought the man would keep repeating those three short sentences until the recording short‑circuited right there on the sidewalk. Mel continued, his head lowered even more than before. The old man stood his ground where his path had been blocked, now muttering unintelligibly, a little microorganism having grazed a similar species floating in a faceless sea. The little round creature would turn and turn until some other encounter disturbed this pause and sent it spiraling on where it would meet many but know none.
Melford Blintze hardly dared to breathe a sigh of relief as he neared his office…. A spasm of anxiety raced icily through his bowels when a pretzel wagon rounded a corner and nearly ran him over. The vendor clutched his cell phone tightly, sputtering garbled phrases into it. He averted the collision and felt secure for a long instant, but this gave way as it always did. The dilapidated exterior of hot white concrete, pigeon excrement baked on its surface, gleamed in the sun for an instant as Melford escaped his mounting agoraphobia. Even now, new fears amassed at the pit of his stomach and the dark corners of his brain danced with the anticipation of urbane conflicts of office society, the thin masks of polite words and overt consideration which concealed man’s basic cruelty and self‑servicing nature. There were many pitfalls and hazards on this first leg of his daily journey. Now, he would deal with those of confinement, an all too finite universe in which the predictability of irrational behavior gave absolutely no sense of preparation for it.”…paging Dilbert.
Engage your interest? Check out my Downtime page.
Re-read the italicized text at the end. Chris Boutet, Financial Post, July 17, 2009, wrote about a new book called I Hate People by Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon.
“From the backstabbing corporate ladder-climber, to the naysaying "devil’s advocate" who tears down every new idea, to the guy who just won’t shut up about the latest "hilarious" YouTube video he saw, there are no shortage of characters in the modern workplace just waiting to obstruct, irritate, annoy or otherwise trash your day. That is, if you resign yourself to let them.”
In their new business book, I Hate People!, authors Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon offer a road map for beleaguered office-dwellers who yearn to break free from the endless meetings and frustrating interactions that derail their career ambitions—or, as the authors put it, "kick loose from the overbearing and underhanded jerks at work and get what you want out of your job."
That pretty much covers the workplace, the office, the cubicle farms, etc. I first learned of this book by a friend. She’s reading it now and I told her to give it to me when she’s done. So, outside the workplace, but still outside….
Strategies for Venturing Out
Adopt a fierce persona. Look psychotic. Talk to yourself. Suddenly laugh for no reason.
If forced to go to a Walmart (like for cheap prescription drugs), pop a xanax first. Wouldn’t you feel uneasy in a leper colony?
The best “public” face I have ever seen is by actor Paul Giamatti in a film called American Splendor (2003). The film is not about this topic, but just look at that face. Would you hassle this guy? The scene here also depicts the shopping checkout line frustration alluded to earlier.
Shunning Public
Okay, we’ve had enough. Time to head home. The true misanthrope bears a certain dignity in his isolation. As I age, adopting the persona of the recluse suits me. Jules Verne’s character Captain Nemo said, at least in the film version of Mysterious Island, “contact with my own species has always disappointed me.” What about island shipwreck victims? Robinson Crusoe, in the spirit of its time—the eighteenth century—was more or less a user manual, a how-to set of instructions for survival. No inner musings or reflection or existential howling at the heavens. Like Bugs Bunny said, “What a maroon.” More contemporary was Tom Hanks’ portrayal of a crash survivor, struggling to combat the crushing loneliness in Castaway (2000). Sometimes you prefer the company of the soccer ball, “Wilson” to people. Time to enter the bomb shelter and bolt the doors.
I teach Mondays through Thursdays. On Friday mornings I catch up with lesson preparation, or grading papers, or corresponding with a student who has a paper two weeks overdue because he attended a second cousin’s funeral out of the country. Friday afternoons are sacrosanct. Solemnly observe your chosen ritual. I am a true film buff, the good stuff, not what passes for popular film today, including actors to whom I refer as the rotating cast of mediocrity: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Farrell, Adam Sandler, Ben Affleck, et. al. There are people who think Mall Cop (Paul Blart, 2009) is very funny who know nothing about literate comedy.
I like the classics and contemporary serious film (the latter dwindling; many good actors have returned or migrated to TV because there are fewer good roles in cinema—Gary Sinise, for example). This is the exact opposite of TV launching the careers of actors like Tom Hanks and Robin Williams into film stars many years ago. Movie houses, theaters, are not long for this world (see Disappearing). The Academy recently announced that nominations for “Best Film” will be increased from five to ten. It’s hard to come up with five these days. “Also nominated for best film: Mall Cop.” Why not celebrate mediocrity? It’s consistent with our cultural downshift.
The only comprehensive and relatively inexpensive source for films is Netflix. So I always have them coming and going. Yes, it’s escapism and it’s isolating and the psychologists would have an argument about even classifying it as a disorder. You want disorders? Go back out in public That’s why I’m retreating to my personal bomb shelter in the first place. Private bomb shelters originated in the 1950s when the nation suffered from nuclear attack hysteria. Actually, the fear was legitimate, the defense absurd as shown in the public service clip here. A “mockumentary” called The Atomic Café (1981) spoofs this nonsense.
Okay, we’ve had enough. Time to head home. The true misanthrope bears a certain dignity in his isolation. As I age, adopting the persona of the recluse suits me. Jules Verne’s character Captain Nemo said, at least in the film version of Mysterious Island, “contact with my own species has always disappointed me.” What about island shipwreck victims? Robinson Crusoe, in the spirit of its time—the eighteenth century—was more or less a user manual, a how-to set of instructions for survival. No inner musings or reflection or existential howling at the heavens. Like Bugs Bunny said, “What a maroon.” More contemporary was Tom Hanks’ portrayal of a crash survivor, struggling to combat the crushing loneliness in Castaway (2000). Sometimes you prefer the company of the soccer ball, “Wilson” to people. Time to enter the bomb shelter and bolt the doors.
I teach Mondays through Thursdays. On Friday mornings I catch up with lesson preparation, or grading papers, or corresponding with a student who has a paper two weeks overdue because he attended a second cousin’s funeral out of the country. Friday afternoons are sacrosanct. Solemnly observe your chosen ritual. I am a true film buff, the good stuff, not what passes for popular film today, including actors to whom I refer as the rotating cast of mediocrity: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Farrell, Adam Sandler, Ben Affleck, et. al. There are people who think Mall Cop (Paul Blart, 2009) is very funny who know nothing about literate comedy.
I like the classics and contemporary serious film (the latter dwindling; many good actors have returned or migrated to TV because there are fewer good roles in cinema—Gary Sinise, for example). This is the exact opposite of TV launching the careers of actors like Tom Hanks and Robin Williams into film stars many years ago. Movie houses, theaters, are not long for this world (see Disappearing). The Academy recently announced that nominations for “Best Film” will be increased from five to ten. It’s hard to come up with five these days. “Also nominated for best film: Mall Cop.” Why not celebrate mediocrity? It’s consistent with our cultural downshift.
The only comprehensive and relatively inexpensive source for films is Netflix. So I always have them coming and going. Yes, it’s escapism and it’s isolating and the psychologists would have an argument about even classifying it as a disorder. You want disorders? Go back out in public That’s why I’m retreating to my personal bomb shelter in the first place. Private bomb shelters originated in the 1950s when the nation suffered from nuclear attack hysteria. Actually, the fear was legitimate, the defense absurd as shown in the public service clip here. A “mockumentary” called The Atomic Café (1981) spoofs this nonsense.
Getting back to the DVDs, literary novelist, Paul Auster, recognized this in his novel, Man in the Dark (2008). A man spends time with his adult daughter, who has recently undergone the trauma of losing a husband. This is how they pass the time:
“I need a few moments to reflect on Katya and the films, since I still can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. When she started ordering the DVDs through the Internet, I took it as a sign of progress…. If nothing else, it showed me that she was willing to let herself be distracted, to think about something other than her dead Titus. She’s a film student, after all, training to become an editor, and when the DVDs started pouring into the house, I wondered if she wasn’t thinking about going back to school…. After a while, I began to see this obsessive movie watching as a form of self-medication, a homeopathic drug to anesthetize herself against the need to think about the future. Escaping into a film is not like escaping into a book. Books force you to give something back to them, to exercise your intelligence and imagination, whereas you can watch a film—and even enjoy it—in a state of mindless passivity.”
I am also interested in films which have been adapted from novels. Ninety-nine percent of the time the book is better. Serious films do not induce mindless passivity to use Boyle’s phrase. Mindless passivity is Animal House and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Laughs, though clever, witty. And these two films both belong in any sensible list of the ten best comedies. By contrast, watching Schlinder’s List is not mindless passivity. As an aside, the movie was made from a book by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The book is every much as good as the film. I like almost any genre of film, except musicals. Crime mysteries are heavy on plot, not a strong suit of mine, so I almost never figure out whodunit. Also good are film adaptations of classic stage plays. Mel Gibson’s 1993 version of Hamlet is well done and very accessible. No mindless passivity there.
Next, make sure the big screen TV and remote are in good working order. Close the blinds and bolt doors. Consult your extensive collection of delivery menus. Prepare the libations of choice. Don’t answer the phone if possible and simply disappear into the screen. It’s your own private bomb shelter…Here listed are 15 personal favorite (there could be so many others) quotes from what I refer to as best “bomb shelter” movies included as a quiz (answers at the bottom of the page, along with brief commentaries). It’s a very eclectic list, which pretty much reflects my tastes in literature and film. Extra points if, in addition to identifying the film, you can also identify the actor and the character.
“I need a few moments to reflect on Katya and the films, since I still can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. When she started ordering the DVDs through the Internet, I took it as a sign of progress…. If nothing else, it showed me that she was willing to let herself be distracted, to think about something other than her dead Titus. She’s a film student, after all, training to become an editor, and when the DVDs started pouring into the house, I wondered if she wasn’t thinking about going back to school…. After a while, I began to see this obsessive movie watching as a form of self-medication, a homeopathic drug to anesthetize herself against the need to think about the future. Escaping into a film is not like escaping into a book. Books force you to give something back to them, to exercise your intelligence and imagination, whereas you can watch a film—and even enjoy it—in a state of mindless passivity.”
I am also interested in films which have been adapted from novels. Ninety-nine percent of the time the book is better. Serious films do not induce mindless passivity to use Boyle’s phrase. Mindless passivity is Animal House and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Laughs, though clever, witty. And these two films both belong in any sensible list of the ten best comedies. By contrast, watching Schlinder’s List is not mindless passivity. As an aside, the movie was made from a book by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The book is every much as good as the film. I like almost any genre of film, except musicals. Crime mysteries are heavy on plot, not a strong suit of mine, so I almost never figure out whodunit. Also good are film adaptations of classic stage plays. Mel Gibson’s 1993 version of Hamlet is well done and very accessible. No mindless passivity there.
Next, make sure the big screen TV and remote are in good working order. Close the blinds and bolt doors. Consult your extensive collection of delivery menus. Prepare the libations of choice. Don’t answer the phone if possible and simply disappear into the screen. It’s your own private bomb shelter…Here listed are 15 personal favorite (there could be so many others) quotes from what I refer to as best “bomb shelter” movies included as a quiz (answers at the bottom of the page, along with brief commentaries). It’s a very eclectic list, which pretty much reflects my tastes in literature and film. Extra points if, in addition to identifying the film, you can also identify the actor and the character.
- “The funeral meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage table.”
- “We began to develop weapons we couldn’t possibly use.”
- “You can’t fight in here. This is the war room.”
- “There are no other guests.”
- “I want the job with the least amount of responsibility.”
- “You’ve always been the caretaker.”
- “Jesus God almighty, will you look at that bunch over there, man!”
- “What are you doing Saturday night?” “Committing suicide.” “What about Friday?”
- “Where are we going?” “Where they went.” “What if they went nowhere?” “Well, then, this’ll be your big chance to get away from it all.”
- “I'll suck your cock for a thousand dollars.” “Let me find an ATM.”
- “One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blurp blurp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking, rotten guts.”
- “Have or have I not covered vaginal juices?”
- “Would sixty gallons be sufficient?”
- “I mean, my God, where do you train your nurses, Mrs. Christie, Dachau?”
- “Son, being fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.”
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Answers:
- Mel Gibson’s Hamlet (1993). Hamlet tells his friend, Horatio that his mother remarried too soon following the King’s death. The Bard knew his sarcasm—it has a modern bite to it. Shakespeare is on the verge of not being taught at any level. When it is “translated” into “modern” English to make it accessible for students, it sounds ridiculous and they still don’t read it. In a hundred years or less, the works of Shakespeare, read or performed, will be virtually unknown.
- On the Beach (1956). Following world-wide nuclear destruction, a handful of survivors in Australia await radioactive fallout to kill them. A scientist, played by Fred Astaire, states the obvious absurdity. The Aussies have a wonderful national song called “Waltzing Matilda”, and the tune is adapted to a haunting background score for the film. For more information on the song, click here . It’s a great drinking song and at least one line is admiringly defiant, “you’ll never take me alive….” When our streets are deserted and the tumbleweeds abound and the soup kitchens close, we’ll strike up a lusty chorus while twilight descends.
- Dr. Strangelove (1964). Stanley Kubrick’s comic send-up of the dead serious Failsafe (also 1964) although they were made about the same time. Would have made a great double feature. A Russian diplomat and an American General push and shove in a strategic planning room in the Pentagon.
- Sunset Boulevard (1950). Norma Desmond is a pathetic over-the-hill silent film star who wants to stage a comeback. William Holden plays a fringe Hollywood writer who has become her lover, but sees that will take him nowhere, Norma invites him to a New Year’s Eve party. He asks, “Where are the other guests?” At the end when the twinkie truck comes for Norma, she says she is ready for her close-up as she approaches the screen, grotesquely animated, as if she’s about to step into my living room. Oh yeah? Well, that can work both ways.
- American Beauty (1999). Kevin Spacey, having lost his Dilbert job, interviews with a burger joint. His utterance resonates with the frustrated working public. My experience in workplace taught me that the most responsibility lies with workers who have no authority to carry it out. Those with the most authority seemed to have no responsibility. As for the movie, it is arguably the best made in the last 10 years.
- The Shining (1981). Kubrick again, this based on Stephen King’s novel. A family of three spends a snowed-in winter at a haunted mountain hotel. Apparently, over the years, caretakers keep coming and chopping up their families before offing themselves. This is the response Jack Nicholson gets when he asks a waiter-ghost about other caretakers. Considering the size of the hotel there is still a sense of claustrophobia and isolation, the latter of the bomb shelter variety.
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). Johnny Depp as gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, tripping on a cocktail of psychedelic drugs who reacts when he sees bar patrons turn into dinosaurs. You may not see people in Walmart turning into dinosaurs, but some of them are just as disturbing.
- Play it Again, Sam (1972). Early in his film career. Woody Allen played the schlemiel who could never make it with women. He meets one in a museum, who is admiring a painting. When he asks her what she thinks it means, she launches into an outrageous nihilist diatribe. Unfazed, Allen asks her out.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Good story with classical allusions to Shakespeare’s King Lear, Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. It is, however, a real ham-off between Shatner and the late Ricardo Montalban. So many unintentionally funny lines. McCoy poses the question to Kirk. A chance to get away from it all by going nowhere is right on topic here.
- The Big Lebowski (1998). You could pick something from any Cohen Brothers movie. The bizarre landscape in their films sometimes seems a more valid reality than our own. Jeff Bridges as the Dude has a perfectly logical response to the offer.
- A Clockwork Orange (1971). Kubrick yet again. Depicts a dystopian society ruled by mindless violence. A young Malcolm MacDowell, ultra-violent and hyper-sexed, takes offense at a homeless old man under a bridge who asks for money.
- The Meaning of Life (1983). It’s John Cleese’s deadpan delivery on sex education in an upper crust British prep school. A textbook example of incongruity.
- Forbidden Planet (1956). Arguably one of the best science-fiction films ever made. A very literate story, loosely adapted from Shakespeare’s Tempest. The space cook (for comic relief) is about to run out of his private stock of whiskey. Robby the Robot samples the last of it and offers to reproduce it. Look for a very youthful Leslie Nielsen in a serious role, much later of Naked Gun fame.
- The Hospital (1971). Paddy Chayevsky’s dark comedy about a chaotic urban hospital (I mention this in Health Care). George C. Scott of Patton fame is the Chief Surgeon and Administrator trying to hold it all together while his personal life is in shambles. He growls at a nursing supervisor played by Nancy Marchand who later turned up as Tony Soprano’s malevolent mother. The inflection and growling of Scott make the line and there are others.
- Animal House (1978). The Deltas are hauled into the Dean’s office for their poor midterm averages. Dean Wormer chastises each but finally looks at “Flounder”, played by Stephen Furst and offers great wisdom.