Apparent Weight: or, Learning to Read (Finally) Gravity's Rainbow [in Which the Author Seeks to Express the Sense of Frustration and Exhilaration Accompanying His Latest Attempt to Read Thomas Pynchon's 1973 760-Page Postmodern "Encyclopedic Narrative" Magnum Opus While at Home During the Recent Pandemic and During Which, in the Unspecified Stretch of Time Ahead of Him, the Author Assumed He Would Have Not Only the Requisite Time but Also the Requisite Attention Span and the Requisite Stamina Normally Associated with "Cracking the Code" of One of the Most Notoriously Difficult Contemporary American Novels Written Over the Past 50 Years or So and About Which the Author is Pained to Admit that Said Time, Attention Span, and Stamina All Faltered a Time or Two While Trying Again (a Second Time) to Make His Way Through Pynchon's Maze of a Book and Stopping During These Times of Stasis to Reflect on the General Nature of Basic Physical Laws, Like the Laws of Relativity, Gravity, and Entropy, All "Basic" Laws of Physics Which Coincidentally Reflect Relationship--Sequential and Spatial--of One Thing to Another and So Which Inevitably Turns the Author Toward Seemingly Random Philosophical Contemplations of Why Books Like This Would be Written in the First Place, and Why They Would Ever be Read, and What is Meant by the Metaphorical Similarity Between the Complicated, Challenging Books That We Choose to (Try to) Read and the Complicated, Challenging People That We Choose to (Try to) Love]

____________________

*  1  *

The lunatic is on the grass.

Remembering games, and daisy chains, and laughs,
[we've] got to keep the loonies on the path....

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon,
and if there is no room upon the hill,
and if your head explodes with dark forebodings, too,
I'll meet you on the dark side of the moon.

-- Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon, "Brain Damage" (1)

*

Here are some things that happened in (and with) the United States of America in 1973:

• President Richard M. Nixon was sworn in for his second term.
• Ohio became the first state to post signs with distances written in metrics.
• The Supreme Court overruled the states' right to ban abortion with the new ruling, Roe v Wade.
• UCLA won its 7th consecutive men's college basketball National Championship title under head coach John Wooden.
• The World Trade Center opened in New York City.
• The last U.S. soldier was withdrawn (officially) from Vietnam.
• The Watergate scandal/investigation intensified.
• The first hand-held cellular phone call was made by Martin Cooper in New York City.
• In Super Bowl VII the Miami Dolphins, under head coach Don Shula, beat the Washington Redskins 14-7. The Dolphins' victory capped a perfect, unbeaten 17-0 season--still an NFL record today.
• Pioneer 11 was launched, with its mission to study the solar system.
• A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and American Indian Movement activists--occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee in South Dakota--ended with the militants' surrender.
• Thoroughbred racehorse, Secretariat, became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years with his victory at the Belmont Stakes. Secretariat's win by 31 lengths is still considered by many to be one of the greatest achievements in race history.
• Congress passed the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA), federally mandating Special Education.
• DJ Kool Herc originated the (then "new") genre of hip-hop music in New York City.
• The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was founded.
• The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its DSM-II.
• Egypt and Israel signed a U.S.-sponsored peace-treaty accord.
• Skylab, the first U.S. space station, was launched.
• Skylab 2 was launched, with a mission to repair damages to the recently launched Skylab.
• Skylab 3 was launched, with a mission to conduct medical and scientific experiments aboard Skylab, which had been previously launched, and then damaged, and then repaired by the also-previously launched Skylab 2.
• The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ended (officially).
• The Oakland A's repeated their MLB championship title following their victory over the New York Mets, 5-2, in Game 7 of the World Series.
• The Buffalo Bills' O.J. Simpson became the first NFL running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season.
• The Endangered Species Act was passed. (2)
• The movie, The Exorcist--with a screenplay by William Peter Blatty (based on his bestselling novel from two years earlier) and directed by young wunderkind filmmaker, William Friedkin--was released to wide outcry and acclaim. Long lines of eager, trepidatious filmgoers wrapped around city blocks, awaiting their chance to see the film, despite (and even largely because of) reported stories of audience members passing out and/or vomiting during the movie. (Due to the hysteria and the resulting crowds around it, The Exorcist would become an early--if not the first--American film to herald in a new age of "blockbuster films" in cinema. A welcome blessing to some aficionados. A death-knell of the art form to other cinephiles.)
• The British psychedelic/progressive rock band, Pink Floyd, released their 8th studio album, The Dark Side of the Moon, which would go on to sell over 45 million copies, would become entrenched on U.S. music charts for over 950 weeks, would be a mainstay on record players and stereos the world over, and would serve as fodder--inside a perpetual cloud of skunky smoke--for marijuana-inspired dissection, discussion, and debate in dorm rooms for decades.
• Young American author Thomas Pynchon had published two previous novels to somewhat unanimous (if not generously confused) acclaim--V. (1963) and The Crying of Lot 49 (1965). After setting a high bar for himself, there would follow a silent hiatus from Pynchon and his typewriter--a period which drove speculation and anticipation through the roof: What would this great young writer surprise us with next? It was in this atmosphere, then, that Pynchon would finally reveal his third novel to the reading world: Gravity's Rainbow. 

____________________

*  2  *

"We have to talk in some kind of code, naturally," continues the Manager. "We always have. But none of the codes is that hard to break. Opponents have accused us, for just that reason, of contempt for the people. But really we do it all in the spirit of fair play. We're not monsters. We know we have to give them some chance. We can't take hope away from them, can we?"

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, Part 4: "The Counterforce" (3)

*

Off the Japanese mainland--940 km. (580 mi.) south-southeast of Tokyo--the small, nondescript isle of Nishinoshima had existed silently for thousands of years as a barely noticeable splotch of terra firma in the Pacific Ocean's Volcanic Island Arc. (4)  At Nishinoshima's center slept a dormant volcanic vent, until around 1973, anyway, when the isle--for whatever reason--decided to wake up, stretch its atrophied limbs, yawn, and get out of bed. Inexplicably, Nishinoshima--after lying small and dormant since forever--began to grow. A series of volcanic eruptions sent a flow of ash and lava cascading downward (as volcanoes are wont to do), pooling and collecting in cooled, blackened piles around the island's impressively alert blow-hole.

Steam. Rumblings. Sulphur. Fire. Lava. The whole miasmatic stuff of Genesis.

[Aside: ...or Hell...take your pick on which end of the Bible you want to start from, I guess. Of course, the Japanese tradition of reading sees a book beginning from right to left, though, so...there's that.]

Varieties of plants and animal species have, over time, begun to call the island home. To this day, Nishinoshima has defied odds and continues to grow every year. As of 2019, the island was measured at 2.89 sq km (1.12 sq mi). (5) Scientists are stymied and even somewhat amused, viewing it as a cute sort of anomaly, almost. Even some of the world's top scientists cannot predict how long little Nishinoshima's growth spurt will last or how big it will eventually become when the island's beating heart and breathing lungs inevitably fall silent again.

But as all the poets of the world and all the shaman of varied cultures over time have reminded us [Aside: and that would include George Harrison, of course] all things must pass.

____________________

*  3  *

BENOIT BLANC: .... I anticipate the terminus of Gravity's Rainbow.
MARTA CABRERA: Gravity's Rainbow...
BENOIT BLANC: It's a novel.
MARTA CABRERA: Yeah, I know. I haven't read it, though.
BENOIT BLANC: Neither have I. Nobody has. But I like the title. It describes the path of a projectile determined by natural law.

-- Knives Out, Screenplay: Rian Johnson, Director: Rian Johnson (6)

*

I was 30 years old when I first decided to read a Pynchon novel. At the time, in 1997, his fifth novel, the pistache-intermingled pseudo-historical yarn, Mason & Dixon, had just been published to some considerable fanfare; after all, with a writer of Pynchon's notoriously hermetic privacy and (at that time) sparse output, the arrival of a new book from the celebrated author of Gravity's Rainbow was a relatively big deal--at least to those who pay attention to such arcana. At that time in my life, I was already familiar with postmodernism and with the name of Thomas Pynchon. I even owned two of his previous books: 1965's The Crying of Lot 49, and his most recent book (at that time), 1990's Vineland, although I had not yet read either of them. Up to that point in my reading life, "Thomas Pynchon" existed as a name on the spine of books sitting on my shelf, proudly on display, undisturbed and unread, gathering the dust of good intentions. 

The thought was always there in the back of my mind, though: I'll get to him sometime.

And then in 1997 when Mason & Dixon came along, I decided it was time to get serious (so to speak) and get to him. So I did.

I remember liking Mason & Dixon. Though it was distorted and a little confusing and "different," I wasn't surprised or put off by it. I expected a fair degree of experimentalism and surrealism, knowing enough about Thomas Pynchon (even though, as I say, up to that point I had never read a word from him). But I liked the novel. Getting through his thick maze of such devices as vocabulary and characters and "plot" (such as it is) took some time and effort. But it was worth it in the end. It paid off. I liked it.

I remember that year, 1997, as being a year of at least a couple of "big" books by "big" postmodern American authors who had made a name for themselves and had since fallen rather silent. Not only did Pynchon make an impressive return with his new novel in 1997, but he was joined by fellow American author Don DeLillo and his latest novel, Underworld. Over the years, DeLillo had quietly crept up on readers--he had managed to establish a kind of underground cult-following of fans. But it wasn't until 1985's White Noise that he gained major attention from the critics and the  public alike. Winning the National Book Award that year, DeLillo followed in 1988 with the publication of Libra, his controversial yet critically lauded fictional retelling of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and his covert participation in a CIA plot to assassinate the American president. Libra was nominated for the National Book Award, but it lost out (possibly due to the criticisms it gained from its divisive characterizations and plot). Three years later, in 1991, DeLillo published the novel Mao II, which would see him win, this time, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

DeLillo was a writer who had slowly earned his place, and 1997 seemed to cement his legacy as a "great" and "important" writer of late-20th century American literature with the publication of his masterwork, Underworld. The book is massive, written by a massive talent, and it couldn't help but draw attention to itself. Once again DeLillo was nominated for the National Book Award, as well as shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. The book wouldn't win either of those awards, but it would go on to be named by the New York Times as a runner-up for the best work of American fiction over the (then) past 25 years, falling second only to Toni Morrison's Beloved, which had appeared 10 years earlier.

[Aside: Just in case you're curious, here is a list of some other books--both fiction and nonfiction--that were published in 1997 alongside Mason & Dixon and Underworld--all which help to point to 1997, I would say, as an exceptional year in the publishing world:

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
• The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
• Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
• The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger
• Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
• Personal History, Katherine Graham
• Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
• The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
• Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace]

Anyway, what was I talking about?... Oh yeah: the appearance of Mason & Dixon during a year of big reads.

So, anyway, my point is it was a busy year--1997--if you're someone who enjoys reading and who enjoys the enjoyment of reading something challenging and worthwhile.

I had, as it turns out, more than I bargained for that year, tackling (among some of the other titles mentioned on the list above) both Mason & Dixon and Underworld. Both of them are big books (in every imaginable meaning of the word "big.") They both have many pages to them. They are dense. They have mass and weight. They take up space. You know you have a book in your backpack or in your hands when you hold either of those two books. You know you're really reading something. They're not "light" reading. They're not passive reading. It's not a joke, holding a book like Underworld or Mason & Dixon--laid open on your lap, or propped up, or grasped with both hands before you, reading the words on the page, making sense of them, making connections with the words to other words and to other images and to other ideas. 

This is what reading is about, after all. It was a hell of a year. And when I was through with those two books, I knew I was impressed with them. I knew I wasn't done yet with those two authors. I knew I wanted more from them.

And first up (if for no other reason than I already had two of his books waiting for me on my shelf) was Pynchon.

____________________

*  4  *

Meantime, Jessica has gone into her Fay Wray number. This is a kind of protective paralysis, akin to your own response when the moray eel jumps you from the ceiling. But this is for the Fist of the Ape, for the lights of electric New York white-waying into the room you thought was safe, could never be penetrated . . . for the coarse black hair, the tendons of need, of tragic love. . . .

"Yeah, well," as film critic Mitchell Prettyplace puts it in his definitive 18-volume study of King Kong, "you know, he did love her, folks." Proceeding from this thesis, it appears that Prettyplace has left nothing out, every shot including out-takes raked through for every last bit of symbolism, exhaustive biographies of everyone connected with the film, extras, grips, lab people . . . even interviews with King Kong Kultists, who to be eligible for membership must have seen the movie at least 100 times and be prepared to pass an 8-hour entrance exam. . . . And yet, and yet: there is Murphy's Law to consider, that brash Irish proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem--when everything has been taken care of, when nothing can go wrong, or even surprise us . . . something will.

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, Part 2: "Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering" (7)

*

Immediately after Mason & Dixon, I turned toward my bookshelf and read the two books that had been sitting there waiting for me--Pynchon's legendary second novel, The Crying of Lot 49, and his much-anticipated and generally well-received fourth novel, Vineland (although at the time, among some circles, it was also considered "disappointing" in some ways, probably because of its having to follow Gravity's Rainbow...and having taken 17 years to do it).

I liked those novels, as well. Entertaining. A bit challenging, but in a good way. A productive way, I suppose. A bit confusing. A bit high-strung, with more questions than answers--but again in a good way. I like that sort of thing. I like to be pushed by a good writer who is intelligent and daring enough to trust himself and his readers with something different and something challenging.

What was it with all this talk about Pynchon's supposed abstract inscrutability and his notorious impenetrability? This wasn't so bad. In fact, I rather liked it.

And with that, I went to my nearest bookstore and plunked down the necessary change for the book that I'd heard so much about, the book that (along with his 1963 debut novel, V.) earned Pynchon such labels as "unreadable," "unendurable," "a mad genius," and "the king's jester and prankster, with actually nothing to say and taking 800 pages to reveal his point": I bought Gravity's Rainbow that day, along with a handy little readers' guide to the novel, providing chapter-by-chapter, page-by-page, line-by-line contextual resources and notes. (I had learned to use a similar tool a few years back, making my way, in graduate school, through James Joyce's Ulysses at the time. It helped.)

I was ready. There was nothing to stop me. It was time. I opened the novel (while open beside me, as well, next to a fresh cup of coffee, was the reader's guide.) New beginnings. New mountains to climb. Possibilities awaiting me. The thrill of discovery. The joy of reading. The opening lines of Gravity's Rainbow:

"A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now...." (8)

____________________

*  5  *

This book is total crapola. Pretentious, meandering, empty. Save your time and money and stare at a wall for a couple of weeks. You will look back at the time as having been more productive than reading this screwed up exercise in bad typing.

-- Alan, "Crapola," 2013, 1-star review on Amazon.com for Thomas Pynchon's, Gravity's Rainbow (9)

*

I think, as memory serves me, I made it to about...maybe...roughly page 50 or so (-ish) before closing the front cover of the novel with a long, intentional sigh, and putting it on the shelf next to The Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland. Now in my personal Pynchon collection I could also proudly display the postmodern "classic," Gravity's Rainbow, along with, of course, its handy reader's guide, which helped to provide chapter-by-chapter, page-by-page, line-by-line contextual resources and notes...at least to about page 50 or so (-ish).

And that was that.

____________________

*  6  *

A gerund comes across the sky....

-- Leatherbags Reynolds, 2015, Comments section on Amazon.com regarding Thomas Pynchon's, Gravity's Rainbow (10)

*

Except that wasn't that. Not exactly.

____________________

*  7  *

FATHER KARRAS: Why her, though? Why this girl?
FATHER MERRIN:  I think the point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as animal and ugly. To make us reject the possibility that God could love us.

-- The Exorcist, Screenplay: William Peter Blatty, Director: William Friedkin, (11)

*

There was a game I used to like to play when I was a little boy. I don't know if "game" is the right word, since it was a rather solitary act, and no one knew I was doing it except for me, which I guess may have been the point. At least partly.

[Aside: I guess.]

Either way, the "game" was simple, and it could exist in at least a couple of different forms:

1. I would excuse myself from the rest of the family (although they were never aware of this) and find the thin grill of an AC/heating vent to lay down next to, my ear close to the metal, holding my breath, and listening to the hushed, muted sound--filtered through the old house's snaking ductwork--of my brothers' voices as they played in the basement without me; or,
2. I would bury myself in a closet, or under a bed, or in a bathroom, or behind the sofa--anywhere that I felt was sufficient cover--and I would wait quietly and patiently in my hiding place, playing at "being gone"--nonexistent, absent, never there, nevermore, alone....

Strange, I know. Maybe. But invariably here's how that little "game" of mine always managed to play itself out:

1. I remember it as if it always took place in the summertime, as if it were perpetual summer during my childhood, or perhaps as if the notion of playing the game only occurred to me during the summer months; but whatever the case it is always summer--the cauldron-like crucible of Kansas summers that always in memory, now, seem to be composed of the unlikely combination of both an unmercifully dry heat and a rain-forest like humidity, carried along on a steady 35-mph wind, with no hills or trees to break its flow, scorching everything in its path like the breath of a dragon. And here I am inside the house, comfortable and cool, seeking out the metal grate on the floor that would give me access to the game. I lay there, my face in the carpet--still showing streaks from the brushes of the recent vacuum-sweeper--my ear pressed against the metal floor-vent, listening to the muffled voices of my brothers below. I can barely make out words. I wonder what they're saying, what they're doing. Only occasionally does a specific word float (echoic) through the air ducts to my ear. Only on those occasions can I make out what is being said from the basement. My stomach tickles with my secret knowledge: I'm listening, and they don't know I'm listening; they don't know where I am. I hold my breath to hear better and to also not give myself away. "Did you hear that? I thought I heard something--it sounded like someone breathing. You didn't hear that?" I don't want to speak. I don't want to utter a sound, to send words down past the vent, echoing down into the duct, revealing the truth of my game to my brothers. The game would be pointless, then, and it would be over. It would all come to an end. So I simply want to listen to them. I simply want to be quiet and to be unobserved, unheard, unbothered, undiscovered. And then, to keep up with the Kansas summer outside, the house's central air-conditioning unit kicks on, and a sudden breath of cool air licks my cheek, and I smell a faint odor of dust blowing up from the ductwork, and I can hear no more from the basement below. But the tickling feeling in my stomach remains; or,
2. Once I choose my hiding place in the house, I hide. And I remain as quiet as possible, listening to life go on around me, without me. And I hold my breath, or try to, while also trying to hold back a laugh, which would give my game away. So I listen. And I wait. I wait for someone to say, "Hey, has anyone seen Dave, lately? Have you seen him around? I've gotta ask him something important. No one's seem him? That's weird. Where could he be? I hope he's all right." But every single time, nothing like this ever happens. No one ever says anything like this. No one even notices I am missing. No one detects my absence from the scene. "Hey, I'm back," I think I might say, popping out suddenly from being hidden, taking them all by surprise and really showing them what they were missing. "Did you even stop to think that I was gone? Did anyone even care that I wasn't here? Hello?" But as always, after about ten minutes of it, I get bored with this version of the game, and I come out of hiding to resume my life, as if nothing ever happened. Because nothing ever did.

____________________

*  8  *

[The novel] is the form that allows a writer the greatest opportunity to explore human experience.... For that reason, reading a novel is potentially a significant act. Because there are so many varieties of human experience, so many kinds of interaction between humans and so many ways of creating patterns in the novel that can't be created in a short story, a play, a poem or a movie. The novel, simply, offers more opportunities for a reader to understand the world better, including the world of artistic creation. That sounds pretty grand, but I think it's true.

-- Don DeLillo (interviewed) (12)

*

I'm not sure how accurate it is to use a word like "fault" when it comes to reading, and particularly when it comes to starting a book that--for whatever reason(s)--you find yourself unable to finish, or maybe it's just not working for you, or engaging you, or speaking to you, or maybe you simply can't keep your mind from drifting and wandering and wondering about all the other books you could be reading at this time instead.

It's not an uncommon thing. Is it?

Who is "at fault" if, as a reader, you start a book you can't finish or don't want to finish? Is anyone or anything finally to blame for something like that? Is something missing in you as a reader? Or is something missing in the book itself? Or is something missing from the writer--mistakes that he or she made in the writing of the book?

Where does the fault lie if you begin a book and you don't want to finish it? What does this say about you? What does this say about the book? What does this say about the writer? Anything at all? Where is there a weakness? Anywhere?

Or could it just be that maybe it's the wrong time for the reader and the book to "hook up"? (Maybe later in life? Maybe never?) Or could it be something as simple as personal taste and choice in reading material? Maybe it's just not your "thing," after all? Or could it be that the writer is just not that good--despite all the hype, perhaps? Is it all of the above, at least in parts? Or could it be none of the above? Maybe, in the end, it's "just one of those things that happens." No biggie.

A no-fault divorce; no one to blame here, simply set the book aside or return it to the shelf where you got it. You gave it a shot, after all; you at least did that much. "It's only a book, for Christ's sake," you hear the voices saying. "There are others. It's not the end of the world if you don't finish a book. What difference does it make? Just choose another book to read, if you have to. One that's more to your liking. Good Lord, worry about something important. It's not fucking rocket science, you know...."

Except....

Call me crazy, but I'm proud of the fact that I like to read and that when I choose to pick up a book it's usually done with some deliberation and with some careful forethought, coming to the conclusion that, before picking it up and opening to the first page, I have--for whatever reasons--determined that this book will interest me, entertain me, challenge me, push me, test me, teach me...something. Otherwise, I don't want to waste my time.

So, in a way it is rocket science.

I'm a book snob. I know that. I get it. I'm fine with that label. Call me what you will, but I don't like to skim-read. I don't like to skip pages. I don't like to turn to Sparknotes or to LitCharts or to the last page to get the ending. I don't like to cheat on a book or on myself. And I don't like to quit a book before getting to the end. I'm a completionist, I guess you could say; I want to see things through to the end--even if it's the bitter end. I don't like giving up before it's over. I have to see if the writer had a plan and if that plan somehow works itself out in some sort of artistic and satisfying way. I have to see if I have what it takes to stick it out, for better or worse, through the good and the bad, and make it to the other side of the book, if for no other reason than to just prove to myself that I can do it. And that the writer knew what he or she was doing. And that I knew what I was doing all along, too.

[Aside: As the years have gone on, I've kind of come to the conclusion that I am that way with people, as well. I've been in relationships before that, by all rights, probably should have killed me with the stress of hanging on too long, the stress of not wanting to let go, the stress of not wanting to give up, to call it quits, to admit defeat, and to be alone. I am stubborn, if nothing else, and like a cat I've lived longer than I should have, time and time again, trying to prove this stubbornness to myself, if to no one else. A book is like a person. Or else a person is like a book. I don't know which. I just know that I approach them both in much the same way these days. You choose a book as you choose a person. You do this carefully, or at least you should. You do it willfully. Thoughtfully. You open them with anticipation and care, going slowly at first, savoring the words, the imagery, the careful introduction, the developing plot and characterization, the gentle give-and-take of them. And you make your way through, and you learn how to read a particular book the same way you learn to know a person. People want to be loved, after all, and a book wants to be read. With patience, with paying attention to the details, and with knowledge of yourself and of who you are, over time a person will show you how to love. Similarly, by a book's end--before you turn its last page and read its last sentence and close its cover--the book will teach you how to read it. And that's important.]

____________________

*  9  *

If you don't go on thinking rationally, you will think irrationally. If you reject aesthetic satisfactions you will fall into sensual satisfactions.... If you don't read good books you will read bad ones.

-- C.S. Lewis (13)

*

I could say several things, maybe, about my first attempt at reading Gravity's Rainbow in the late 1990s, and why I didn't make it very far in the book, and why I quickly grew frustrated with it, and why I was able to set it aside so easily.

Actually, for anyone who has either read the novel (or tried to read the novel) you will know that I probably don't need to explain much. The reasons are all pretty much right there in the early part of Pynchon's long, circuitous, maddening novel.

And it isn't as if I had never taken on challenging reads before. I've proudly taken to task some rather "big," "demanding," "difficult" books and come out the other side--always better for it. [Aside: See Appendix A.] Of course, there are also a fair number of books that I've consciously (or unconsciously) either chosen to stay away from or simply never taken the time to crack open. [Aside: See Appendix B.] Still, there are those books (important, great books, I know, I know...) that, like Gravity's Rainbow when I was a "young" man in my early 30s, I dived into, headfirst, with the best of intentions, only to flounder, slapping away at the water momentarily, until finally dragging myself ashamedly to the shore, watching the book purposelessly float away from me. [Aside: See Appendix C.]

I think my problem (at that time, trying to read Pynchon's infamous novel) was the reader's guide I kept open next to me as I read. I would find myself reading each note as it came up in its context within the story. That method of dancing my eyes back and forth--between the novel and its explanatory notes--helped get me through Joyce's novel of Leopold Bloom years before. In the case of Gravity's Rainbow, though, it didn't work. Such a method this time had the opposite effect of what was intended: 1.) It was slowing my reading down interminably; 2.) It was confusing me even more with what was going on in the book's plot; and 3.) It was causing me to quickly lose interest and to wonder why I was going to so much trouble.

And so I stopped. Christ, there are easier and more enjoyable ways to spend your time, after all.

But it bothered me. I don't like quitting, and it lodged in the back of my brain (this idea that I perhaps had not given the book a fair attempt) and it stayed there. The memory of Gravity's Rainbow, sitting on my shelf unfinished--hell, basically unstarted--lingered. Time moved on, though, and I read other books, and I discovered other writers, and I became familiar with established, great writers, like Cormac McCarthy, as well as new, young novelists like David Foster Wallace, and Jonathan Franzen (both of whom were deeply indebted, in their own ways, to postmodernism and to metafiction and to writers like Pynchon, et al.)

[Aside: In fact, young,"up-and-coming" writers like Franzen and Wallace have been, on more than one occasion in their varied careers, labeled "Pynchonesque" by more than one reviewer. I'm not sure how a writer like Thomas Pynchon feels about having his last name morphed into an adjective, and then having that adjective used to describe a new generation of writers following in his footsteps (sort of), or if a writer like Pynchon is even aware of such goings on these days, or if he even cares.]

Somewhere in his hermetically-sealed little world, though, of perfectly controlled privacy and quietness and aloneness, from which he would send out an out-of-the-blue missive every now and then (the occasional book review, comment, "blurb") or the latest tome of a novel, meant to encapsulate an entire decade, Pynchon seemed to get the message that he was, for better or worse, considered an important contemporary literary/cultural figure, and it seems as if he began to wake up to that fact and respond in kind. Suddenly Pynchon was everywhere (at least for him and his notorious lack of "presence"). In the Introduction to his 1984 collection of early short stories, Slow Learner, he would offer just the barest glimpse of autobiographical hints--it's not much, granted, but it's still all there is for those who are looking for such a thing. Also, his "character"--masked by a brown paper bag--made an appearance on The Simpsons (a sign of cultural coolness and "arrivedness," if there ever was one). And more importantly was the arrival of new novels--[Aside: "novels," as in plural.] In 1990, as mentioned, Vineland was published, after a 17-year silent retreat from the man; in 1997 Mason & Dixon was published; and then, in 2006, his long-rumored, much-mystiqued, massive 1,085-page monster of a novel Against the Day finally saw the light of day.

[Aside: I own the hardback copy of Against the Day. I bought it, 1st edition, immediately after its surprise-publication. It sits (heavily) on my shelf, unread. I have not tried to read it, nor do I plan to (I think). Perhaps it is a case, this time, of admitting defeat before even pretending a halfhearted attempt. I don't know. I guess it's always good to know one's limits.]

Three years later--like an unlikely breath of fresh air--came 2009's Inherent Vice. At a mere 369 pages, this was Pynchon's shortest novel since 1965's The Crying of Lot 49. Just looking at the physicalness of the book, Inherent Vice is one of the more "approachable" novels in his oeuvre, maybe. It doesn't immediately scare you off by its sheer heft. This time around, Pynchon chose to take on the Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe thing, drowned in a druggy atmosphere of comic-noirish late-'60s/early-'70s California confusion, sprinkled with a creeping sense of post-pot paranoia (of course), as well as a nagging case of the munchies.

[Aside: I bought this book, too. I read it. I found it to be "Pynchon-lite" in many ways, but pleasantly so. Here, as always, there are the typical Pynchon ingredients of plot-convolution and puzzles-within-puzzles and red-herrings of subplots-within-subplots-within-subplots, all leading to frayed ends and seeming to going nowhere. But I liked it...even though I can't fairly summarize the novel's storyline (if it even matters) and even though I can't say I understood it all (or if you're even supposed to), I still liked the book. And come to think of it, that is perhaps the best Sparknoted statement of Pynchon's literary legacy that could ever be written: "Even though I'm not sure I totally understand it, I like it."]

Finally, rounding out this trio of books in a seeming late-period burst of creative output, Pynchon published his eighth novel, Bleeding Edge, in 2013. Set in a fictional New York City shortly before the terrible events of September 11, 2001, and focusing on the (then) growing (and secretive) world of "dark web"-style dot.com industries, Bleeding Edge sits mysteriously on my bookshelf, its title on the spine looming at me, reminding me it is there, waiting for me, and waiting for the next title from its aging, prolific author [Aside: what will it be? when will it be?] to join it on the shelf.

[Aside: Like Against the Day, I have not yet read Bleeding Edge. But unlike Against the Day, I do plan on reading it. One of these days. Sometime. As soon as I get around to it. It's waiting for me, like so many other titles on my "to-read" list, it seems. So we'll see.]

But first (as always) there was this little matter of Gravity's Rainbow to take care of....

____________________

*  10  *

Skippy, you little fool, you are off on another of your senseless and retrograde journeys. Come back, here, to the points. Here is where the paths divided. See the man back there. He is wearing a white hood. His shoes are brown. He has a nice smile, but nobody sees it. Nobody sees it because his face is always in the dark. But he is a nice man. He is the pointsman. He is called that because he throws the lever that changes the points. And we go to Happyville, instead of to Pain City. Or "Der Leid-Stadt," that's what the Germans call it. There is a mean poem about the Leid-Stadt, by a German man called Mr. Rilke. But we will not read it, because we are going to Happyville. The pointsman has made sure we'll go there. He hardly has to work at all. The lever is very smooth and easy to push. Even you could push it, Skippy. If you knew where it was. But look what a lot of work he has done, with just one little push. He has sent us all the way to Happyville, instead of to Pain City. That is because he knows just where the points and the lever are. He is the only kind of man who puts in very little work and makes big things happen, all over the world. He could have sent you on the right trip back there, Skippy. You can have your fantasy if you want, you probably don't deserve anything better, but Mister Information tonight is in a kind mood. He will show you Happyville.

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, Part 4: "The Counterforce" (14)

*

The Island of Yesterday's Tomorrow

or, "Time Lost and Found"
or, "Feeling the Weight of Gravity's Pull"
(with all due respect to R.E.M.)

[an Original Screenplay]

*******

[Cinematography in B/W: Described in the Pre-Production Pitch as, "Real Gregg Toland/Citizen Kane by-way-of Ortello Martelli/La Dolce Vita by-way-of Sven Nykvist/Persona by-way-of Laszlo Kovacs/Paper Moon by-way-of Gordon Willis/Manhattan Kind of Stuff"]

*******

FADE IN--BEGIN TITLE SEQUENCE

EXT. AERIAL SHOT--DAY- SKY--CLOUDS

A bird's-eye POV as the camera calmly, soundlessly (save for the faint noise of wind) floats through a bank of clouds. Finally, the camera breaks under the clouds. Below is seen the surface of water, the ocean stretching on and on endlessly. Wave patterns and faint shadows of clouds can be seen upon the water's surface as the camera's POV continues its descent, floating freely.

(INSERT)

A human eye is shown in close-up, closed, asleep. Faint twitching behind the eyelid can minutely be detected, as if the eye is experiencing rapid eye movement while dreaming. Hold momentarily. The sound of wind can still be faintly heard.

EXT. AERIAL SHOT--DAY--SKY--OCEAN

Returning to the bird's-eye POV as the camera has continued its slow descent, closer toward the water. Still drifting, the speed of floating has increased. As we draw closer to the water, more definite aspects and details of the ocean's surface come into view. Slowly the camera tilts up and we see, off in the far distance, what looks to be an island, a volcano in its center, a thin wisp of cloud willowing from its cratered peak, trailing up into the sky. The sound of rushing wind grows steadily louder.

(INSERT)

Return to the closed human eye, twitching from dream. The sound of rushing wind continues to be heard.

EXT. AERIAL SHOT--DAY--SKY--ISLAND

The bird's-eye POV continues as the camera's descent from above approaches the island, ever nearer. Trees, rock formations, beaches, inlets, waves surrounding the land all begin to take shape and to grow in focus as the camera floats steadily downward. We approach the volcano's peak, fly above it, through its thin smoke plume, and are able to gain a glimpse down into its crater. We circle the peak, gaining a good view of the volcano. The island is small, but beautiful, lush, alive. The sound of wind is much louder.

(INSERT)

Again a shot of the human eye, closed, asleep, but starting to stir, starting to show signs of fluttering. The sleeper is possibly beginning to awaken. We hear the familiar sound of wind rushing by, but suddenly this is replaced by a harsh sound of thumping and banging and crashing.

EXT. AERIAL SHOT--DAY--SKY--ISLAND--TREES

Bird's-eye POV, and we are flying through trees now. They go whizzing by us rapidly. Limbs, branches, leaves of the island's tropical trees clatter and snap all around us as our descent to the island nears its end with a crash landing. The sound of the cacophony is deafening.

(INSERT)

Our familiar shot of the human eye--asleep, closed, dreaming--suddenly jars awake. The eyelid flutters open. We hear a surprised gasp for breath.

EXT. ISLAND--DAY

The camera's bird's-eye POV comes to an end, with the crashing and clattering and splintering and breaking of tree limbs and the sound of earth giving way.

INT. BEDROOM--DAY

David jumps awake in bed, pulling himself quickly upright and letting out a little yell of surprise. The room is bare and sterile looking--white walls, with no windows or door. In the room there is only a bed and a single chair at the foot of the bed. Jack sits in the chair, and he smiles, noticing David is now awake.

Jack is an older gentleman, dressed comfortably but with care and attention to detail. He wears a tweed jacket, a tie, and wool pants. In his mouth is clenched a pipe, which he will remove, and hold, and replace in his mouth, and light, and relight, and puff on occasionally throughout. He holds a cane/walking stick. He speaks with a crisp yet tender voice of a learned British gentleman. He is hushed, calm, ever refined. 

David is middle-aged, going gray at his temples, and is dressed in hospital whites (at the outset). His accent (and attitude) when he speaks shows him to be an American. He is flustered, confused, with a slight tinge of irritation, irritability, and impatience simmering just below his surface, barely kept in check.

JACK

(smiling)

Well...there you are. The sleeper awakes.

DAVID

(short of breath)

What?.... Where am I?....

JACK

I could explain that to you, or I could show you. Personally, I think the latter would be more effective. And certainly much more beautiful. You really should see it. This place is wonderful.

DAVID

(looking around him at the bare, minimal surroundings)

This place? What is this place? Where am I? What's going on? Who are you?

JACK

Well, no, not this place, particularly. It's a bit spartan, even for my tastes, I suppose. And one thing at a time, please. (He chuckles pleasurably.) I mean out there. Outside. The island. It really is lovely. But... I should show you. I tell you what, you gather yourself together, take some time, feel refreshed, and I'll meet you just outside. How does that sound?

DAVID

Huh?

JACK

Very good then. Yes, just outside. It's all set, then. Only a moment, sir, and it will all be explained. You really must see the island. Stunningly beautiful.

DAVID

Island?....

JACK

Yes. Really quite lovely. I'll be just outside, then.

David looks around him and notices there is no door or windows in the room. He appears confused.

DAVID

Outside?.... What?....

Suddenly Jack is gone, leaving David alone in the room. 

EXT. ISLAND--DAY--CLEARING

The camera's view takes in a slow, measured, deliberate pan of the tropical island view. The beach. The waves crashing in on the rocks and the sand in the distance. The trees swaying. The sound of an island breeze. The calls of various local birds, monkeys, insects, and other island wildlife. The natural decoration of island flora and fauna. The place is a paradise. The scene is naturally beautiful, gentle, and relaxing.

As the camera continues its sweep, taking in the lush scenery, we see Jack sitting peacefully in a clearing, in the same chair he had been sitting in previously inside the room. He puffs on his pipe, contentedly. His face suddenly lights up, and he stands with the aid of his walking stick.

JACK

Ahhh...there you are. Feeling much better now, yes? (He chuckles gently.)

David enter the scene, walking toward Jack. David is dressed now--comfortably, casually--and still appears to be confused and disoriented. But he seems calmer now, his anger and frustration have dissipated for the moment.

DAVID

Yes, thank you. I think.... (He reaches forward to shake Jack's hand.) Thank you. But.... I'm David, by the way.

JACK

Oh, of course, David. A pleasure to meet you. (He takes David's hand in the handshake, smiling, always congenial.) And so many questions, I'm sure.

David looks at Jack quizzically. The handshake is still held as David sizes up the old gentleman, studying him. A look of familiarity crosses David's face. A faint smile forms on his lips.

DAVID

Have we met? I'm sorry, but...I feel as if I know you. From somewhere. I've seen you, at least.... But for the life of me....

JACK

Oh, well, now that I wouldn't know. I suppose it's possible. Yes, quite. I'm Jack, by the way.

David still holds the handshake with Jack. The two men look at one another warmly, but David's smile is sly, as if an awareness is slowly dawning on him.

DAVID

Jack?....

JACK

(smiling)

Yes. Well...as my close friends call me.

DAVID

(returning the smile)

Wait a minute. I know who you are! I recognize you. "Jack." That's your nickname. You're C.S. Lewis!

JACK

(laughing gently)

Yes. Oh my dear, man, yes. I'm afraid I'm been "found out," as they say. Quite right. Clive Staples Lewis, sir. My good friend, David. But, please, do call my Jack. I insist my friends call me Jack.

DAVID

Oh my God! C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia. Oxford professor. One of the original Inklings. Friend of Professor Tolkien. Oh my God! I recognize you from your picture on the book jackets. And from Wikipedia. Are you kidding me? (He laughs, now looking at Jack warmly.) What in the world are you doing here? How are you here? How am I here? (He pauses, looking around him, incredulous.) Where is "here," anyway? What is this place?

JACK

(gently chuckling)

Oh my, well....

DAVID

And, professor Lewis..."Jack"...with all due respect, please don't say again something like, "All in good time, old boy." This is a good time to explain things. This is the time to start answering some questions. No time like the present.

JACK

Well, yes, I suppose you're right, David. There is no time like the present. And it seems you've hit on the very theme of this place. Right from the start, too. Very commendable. Very good. Yes...some answers. You deserve some answers to your questions. You've been more than patient. This is a lot to take in, I'm sure. (Jack pauses and looks around, puffing leisurely on his pipe. He looks at David.) Shall we walk, then? A bit of fresh tropical air should do our lungs some good, I would think. Fortifying, and all that. Yes, let's.... Come along, then.

EXT. ISLAND--DAY--JUNGLE

As the two begin to walk and talk, the camera follows along with a smooth Steadicam Tracking Shot, through the lush, tangled overgrowth (at times), moving along with the pair amidst the beautiful island scenery. There is a brief, awkward moment of quiet as Jack and David begin their walk. Jack--ever the well-mannered host, it would seem--allows for the natural silence at first, seeing if David would begin with more questions. But when it is apparent that his guest is going to be silent, Jack breaks the quiet between them and begins to speak.

JACK

Yes, well.... Very good, then. The island you are on now goes by the name "Nishinoshima." It's Japanese. Tokyo is... (he points, generally, to the north of them) ...that way, about some 500 miles, or so, I should say.

DAVID

Nishinoshima?....

JACK

Yes. That's it. (He smiles.) It's quite a mouthful, at first. But you've already got it. I do love the Japanese language. Just the very look of its words on the page. The sound of them filling your mouth. Much like musical notes, in a way. But you've got it. Nishinoshima. To the Japanese, it means, "western island." Isn't that nice? Western Island...

DAVID

(as if lost in thought)

Nishinoshima.... That sounds familiar.

JACK

(chuckling gently)

Well, yes, I should say so. You wrote about it just a mere several pages back. "Chapter 2" of all of this. That is if you are, indeed, going by the term, "chapter." Perhaps "Section 2," if you prefer? The second movement of this...testimonial, is it? This critique? This reader's confession? Whatever you'd like to call this bit of writing, I suppose....

David looks at him, dumbfounded. Jack laughs good-naturedly.

JACK

Well, I dare say, David, if you're going to insist on standing there with your mouth open, you had better not be a bit surprised when you catch some flies, as my grandmother used to say.

DAVID

What is this? What's going on here? What is this place, really? Who are you?

JACK

I thought we had established all of that already. Really, David, we can't keep going in circles with our conversation. You're inventing all of this, after all. You're the architect of this piece, the writer, the controlling consciousness. I am merely your humble Virgil, after all, here to escort you:

     "Midway in our life's journey, I found myself
          In dark woods, the right road lost...." (15)

DAVID

Dante's Inferno. The famous opening lines of Dante's Inferno. My God!... (he laughs) ... Professor Lewis is quoting the opening lines of Dante's Inferno to me. I wish I could record this. No one's going to believe it! Where's my phone?...

JACK

(smiling gently at David as they continue their walk)

Yes, well.... We don't have those here. Not allowed. You'll find you can get by rather easily without.

DAVID

Nishinoshima.... The little island that could. (He laughs. And then stops abruptly.) Wait a minute. Are you implying that this is Hell? Am I in Hell, now, you being my Virgil here to guide me? Is that what you're saying. Oh my God... Am I dead? Did I die?

JACK

David.... David, calm down. No, it's not like that. It's not what you're thinking. You haven't died, for goodness sake. You're not dead. You're merely writing. It happens. You should know this. You're fine.

DAVID

Is this Hell, though? Is Nishinoshima Hell?

JACK

Well, I didn't say that, did I? I suppose it all depends on your perspective.

DAVID

My perspective?

JACK

Yes. On the way you choose to approach it. The way you decide to look at it.

DAVID

What do you mean? Is this Heaven, then? Am in Heaven? Is that what Nishinoshima is--Heaven?

JACK

Come, now. I didn't say that, either, did I?

DAVID

(looking around him as they continue to walk)

Well, I could imagine this looking like Heaven, I suppose. I don't know. It's all rather paradisiacal.

JACK

(looking around also, and smiling)

Yes, it is beautiful, isn't it? But that's not why you're here. You see, around here, on these shores, we like to refer to Nishinoshima as "The Island of Yesterday's Tomorrow."

DAVID

The Island of Yesterday's Tomorrow?....

JACK

Yes, that's it.

There is a brief pause as you can see on David's face that he's working through the mental wordplay.

DAVID

Well...that would mean..."The Island of Today," then, wouldn't it?

JACK

Why, yes it does. Very good, David. The Island of Today, if you prefer. That is much easier to say. Has more of a ring to it, I suppose.

DAVID

Okay. Nishinoshima. "The Island of Today." But.... I'm still not sure why I'm here.

JACK

You're here, after all, because of what you're writing about. You're here because you are a reader--and a serious, conscientious one, at that. You're here because of... (he chuckles wryly) ... well, I suppose, for want of a more precise term, because of your teeming existential crisis over the reading of Mr. Pynchon's little book that you've wrestled with for decades now.

DAVID

Oh, that.... (sarcastically) I thought you said I wasn't in Hell....

JACK

(smiling)

Oh, now, my dear, David, you must get over this. You must stop thinking this way about a book. After all, it's only a piece of writing. And that's why you're here. To try to help you see that. To get... (he pauses) ...perspective, if you will. To gain some new insight. To learn something about yourself, perhaps. That is, after all, why you're writing all of this, isn't it? Nishinoshima, as it turns out, is an island for unread books. Its shores and jungles and rocky precipices and alcoves serve as a natural storehouse--a home--for all the hundreds, thousands, probably millions of books, at this point, that go unread every year. All bought or borrowed with nothing but the best of intentions, of course. But...unread, anyway. Begun and--for whatever reasons--abandoned. Or never opened. Never looked at. Untouched. Unread. Forever. This is where they come now. This is their home. And it's growing, perceptibly, every day, all the time. More and more unread books. And that is why you're here. To confront Gravity's Rainbow once and for all. (He chuckles.) And to just read the damned thing, for God's sake.

EXT. ISLAND--BEACH--ROCKY BREAKWATER

Suddenly, the sound of the island's surrounding jungle wildlife (birds, monkeys, insects) is overtaken by the sound of the ocean and of waves washing in upon the beach and upon a rocky outcropping. The two have continued walking the whole time during their conversation and now step out into the clear, leaving the trees of the jungle-canopy behind and strolling out onto the open beach and onto a natural breakwater of rocks jutting out into the water and the waves. The ocean is vast and magnificent around them. Behind them, at various times as the camera continues to follow their conversation--not moving now, as they take a moment to rest upon the beach and upon the rocks--the island's central volcano can be glimpsed behind them, always looming, its peak towering above them, sending up a steady trail of smoke.

JACK

(sighing and laughing jovially)

Ahhh...yes, here we are. How lovely. Now, this is not something you see every day.

DAVID

No, to be sure. Not where I come from, anyway.

JACK

Yes. Nor I.

David grabs a handful of sand and stares at it, opens his palm, and watches it sift slowly through his fingers. He stares out at the ocean. Meanwhile, Jack has carefully made his way to a nearby outcropping of rock which forms the base of a narrow natural breakwater jutting out from the island's southern shore. Carefully, Jack sits down. He rummages in his jacket pockets for his pipe, his pouch of tobacco, and matches. He goes about the practiced ritual of preparing and smoking his pipe as they continue talking. During the conversation David will eventually find a spot of sand on the beach and sit down, close to the rock where Jack is sitting.

DAVID

So, an island of unread books?.... That's interesting. Who else knows about this?

JACK

Oh, many. Many like yourself, I should say. Those who are troubled by not finishing a good book, or a challenging book, anyway. A book that they hold, perhaps, a perverse love/hate relationship with. Is this striking any bells for you?...

DAVID

So, this is some sort of penance, after all, then? Some sort of punishment--or withheld reward, anyway--for being a "bad reader"? Go sit in the corner, David, and think about what you've done.

JACK

No. No, David. Not at all. You really must get past this notion of blame and fault in regards to reading and/or not reading a book. My Lord, one would think you were Catholic. This game of assigning guilt--such a thing doesn't apply here. There's no one to blame. You're not a "bad reader," David. As a point of fact, my dear boy, you're quite a very good reader. You know that, yes? You're quite astute  when it comes to art, and to books and writers, in this case. You pay attention to not only what is being written but how it's being written. Those are good traits. Interesting traits. Good writing matters to you. You understand the importance of good writing. And so it quite naturally bothers you when you struggle with a piece of writing that is--well, reportedly anyway--considered important, considered a classic, and considered to be worth reading.

DAVID

(after a brief pause)

What are you doing here, then, Professor Lewis?

JACK

"Jack," please....

DAVID

Jack. Yes. What are you doing here, then, Jack? On an island like this? What brings a writer and reader--a veritable scholar--like you to a place like this?

JACK

As I said, think of me as your guide, your Virgil....

DAVID

Great. I mean, no offense, Professor Lewis--Jack--but I get as my Virgil on Nishinoshima, this Island of Yesterday's Tomorrow, this land of unread books, the writer who is perhaps the late-20th century's greatest Christian apologist? What did I do to deserve that honor? (He laughs and rolls his eyes. And then, sarcastically.) How come I couldn't get a writer like Henry Miller appointed as my guide?

JACK

(smiling slyly)

Oh, dear Lord. Well... I've taken a peek at your Appendices, here, and you haven't tried to read Miller, have you? Rather surprised you've managed to leave him off your list, I must say.

DAVID

What?... (and then as if it suddenly dawns on him, sheepishly) .... Oh, wait a minute. Wait....

JACK

(a smile twinkling from the corner of his eyes as he draws on his pipe)

Yes. Am I to be offended that you didn't see fit to make your way through all of my dear old Narnia books?

DAVID

(embarrassed)

Oh...Mr. Lewis. It's not that. It's just....

JACK

No need to apologize, son. Good Lord, my skin is thicker than that. And I entirely understand. The whole affair does--I suppose for some--get a little long in the tooth, the further along it goes. Believe me, if one writes long enough you hear much worse criticism than that. It's quite all right. But... in answer to your question, one of those "Unfinished Authors" of yours was summarily appointed to you. (Laughing heartily.) I seem to have drawn the short straw, as you might say.

DAVID

(sarcastically)

I'm surprised I didn't get Pynchon, himself.

JACK

Ha! Take my word for it, you wouldn't have wanted him.

DAVID

Well, I would have had a few questions for him, that's for sure.

JACK

I'd say you've had a few questions for me. Besides, I don't think anyone properly knows where he is, of course. Rather famously reclusive. Preferring, instead, to stay "out of the limelight," I believe the saying goes...

DAVID

Yes, to put it mildly.

JACK

(begins feeling about his jacket, patting the pockets, as if in search of something)

Oh, now, let's see.... Where is it? Where have I put it? A small clipping I was going to share with you. (He reaches inside the liner pocket of the breast of his jacket and then smiles.) Ahh, yes. Here it is. Just a moment....

Jack unfolds a small piece of paper, clipped from a journal, and holds it in his hands to read aloud.

JACK

I came across this the other day in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Quite good. Made me think of sharing it with you, anyway. Rather apropos, at the moment, I should say. Let's see, once I get my eyeglasses on, that is.... (He adjusts his glasses on his nose and begins to read.) This is dated 2004, 8th of February, from a Mr. Arthur Salm, about our dear friend, Mr. Pynchon:  "The man simply chooses not to be a public figure," Mr. Salm writes, "an attitude that resonates on a frequency so out of phase with the prevailing culture that if Pynchon and Paris Hilton were ever to meet--the circumstances, I admit, are beyond imagining--the resulting matter/antimatter explosion would vaporize everything from here to Tau Ceti IV." (16)

Jack laughs loud and long at what he has read from the news clipping. David only stares silently, again open-mouthed.

JACK

Oh my, that is wonderful. I must say, that's rather delightful. Can you imagine?....

He laughs some more. David is still unresponsive, at first. Eventually he breaks his silence.

DAVID

Are you trying to tell me you know who Paris Hilton is? The late-20th century's greatest Christian apologist has a working knowledge of Paris Hilton? What the hell is going on here?

JACK
(still laughing and smiling)

I beg your pardon?

DAVID

Nothing. Never mind.... Look, can I ask you a question, Jack?

JACK

Of course you can, David. I'm here to help you.

DAVID

I have to ask you--since I seem to now have the opportunity--about that famous quote attributed to you. You know the one....

JACK

I'm afraid I know of several.

DAVID

(reciting from memory)

The one that goes: "We read to know we're not alone."

JACK

(smiling knowingly)

Ahh, yes. That old chestnut....

DAVID

Can I be blunt, Professor Lewis?

JACK

Oh, I would appreciate that.

DAVID

Well... I mean, it's not that I find anything particularly disagreeable with the saying, I suppose. I mean...it's a nice thought. It's a warm sentiment. And it's partly true, I guess, from a certain way of looking at it. From a certain perspective, as you say. (He smiles nervously.) It's just.... Professor Lewis, I just don't know that I agree with it wholeheartedly.

JACK

Well, that's good.

David continues quickly, as if he didn't even hear Jack's reply.

DAVID

I mean, yes, reading is--or can be, certainly--a communal act. Certainly there are Reading Groups and classes that meet and discuss books. And there is a universality to the act itself, where two people on opposite ends of the earth can both be reading the same thing and experiencing the same responses from the reading. But... I don't know.... Reading is also, primarily, such a solitary act. Don't you think? It's such an act done in silence, when one is alone with a book and an author, talking with the author, conversing one-on-one, the two of them. In private. Alone. I think reading can be--maybe even should be--a lonely act. It might be one of the most lonesome acts we have, aside from writing, interestingly.... (It finally registers with David what Jack has said earlier.) .... Wait. What? Did you say, "Good"?

JACK
(chuckling)

Yes. "Good." That's good that you don't agree with that saying wholeheartedly.

DAVID

Wait. What do you mean? You're glad I disagree with you?

JACK

But you're not disagreeing with me, David. Because I never said that.

DAVID

What? But you....

JACK

(interrupting)

No. I never actually said "We read to know we're not alone." Those words don't belong to me. Oh, certainly, I know they sound good. Such a saying is all very lovely, I suppose, on the countless memes floating around these days. A part of me even half wishes I had said it. Think of the royalties, my boy. (He chuckles emptily.) No, I didn't say it, though. My fictional self said it, however. Credit the playwright, William Nicholson, who had me mouth those words in his stage play and then in his eventual film, Shadowlands. About me and Joy... Yes....

Jack stares off in the distance, his eyes grow far away, misty. Finally he smiles again.

JACK

Lovely bit, that, I must say, seeing Joy brought to life by the lovely Debra Winger. And then there's myself, being played by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Well, it's not every day, you know, one is portrayed by Hannibal Lecter.

Once again, David is silent for a moment, open-mouthed, staring dumbly at Jack.

DAVID

Paris Hilton. Memes. Debra Winger. Anthony Hopkins. And Hannibal Lecter.... Oh my God, there is so much to unpack here. (He shakes his head.) If I wasn't standing here right now, hearing it for myself, I wouldn't believe it. No one is going to believe this.

JACK

(as if he didn't hear what David has just said)

But for what it's worth, David, I agree with your previous assessment about reading being a lonely act. I believe you're on to something. I mean, it's strangely almost an outgrowth of your earlier notion of anthropomorphizing a book--giving it the attributes of a woman, for instance, as you started to do earlier and as you'll explore even further along in this piece here. You seem to find the act of reading a book much the same as you see the act of forming a relationship with another human being--even though the two acts are so different and so totally at odds with one another. On the one hand, you must be willing to open yourself up and share yourself intimately with another person. To be at one with another. On the other hand, you must be willing to close yourself off and to shut out the world, to experience the world offered to only you by the author. To be at one with yourself, in other words. Union and disunion. Order and chaos. In your earlier discussion in this...essay, book, whatever this piece of writing of yours is becoming now...you almost began to draw parallels between the two acts, to metaphorically show that they are the same, though different. Quite interesting, indeed. Yes... (Jack pauses, drawing again on his pipe, sizing David up.) How remarkable, this notion of togetherness and separateness. Two sides of the same coin, as it were. A perfect dialectic. Together and alone. And both fueled by the same desire--to feel love. There is loneliness, for you--the same loneliness in the act of reading a book--in the very act of falling in love. The two are one and the same. (He pauses again.) To read is to be alone. And to fall in love, you are saying, is also to feel this same sense of loneliness. Or maybe not even the same "sense" of it. Maybe it is, quite simply, one and the same loneliness. Extraordinary, David. Absolutely extraordinary.... Perhaps your new meme should read: "We read to know we are alone." Yes, perhaps. Quite right.... Do you mind if I make a note of this?

At this moment, as Jack finishes this last thought--and quite unexpectedly--a large, over-sized octopus, named Grigori, lurches up from the waves that are washing against the rocky outcropping where Jack sits. Lunging awkwardly, swinging its slimy, ropelike tentacles about, the crustacean manages to grab hold of the rockface on the breakwater and pull itself toward the unsuspecting Oxford professor, who is too busy pontificating on the dialectical nature of love and aloneness to notice that he is no longer alone on the rocks. With one sucker-covered tentacle, Grigori reaches toward Jack, wraps one of his eight arms around the waist of the old writer/Virgil, and pulls Jack off from the rock cliff into the foam and the spray of the crashing waves.

JACK

(through teeth clenched determinedly on the stem of his pipe)

Oh, bloody hell....

Watching the scene unfold, it takes only a matter of seconds. David witnesses it, stunned and unable to react or to respond in time to save Jack's life. Immediately, David jumps to his feet, standing alone in the sand, watching as Jack disappears with Grigori below the surface of the ocean.

(INSERT)

The camera's view quickly moves directly in front of David. He is centered directly in the frame, standing alone on the beach, watching helplessly. As described in the pre-production pitch as, "Real Hitchock/Vertigo by-way-of Spielberg/Jaws kind of stuff," the camera dolly-zooms in on David's amazed and horrified expression.

DAVID

WHAT THE FUCK?!

(INSERT)

Suddenly, we see again--as before--a human eye shown in close-up, closed, asleep. Faint twitching behind the eyelid can minutely be detected, as if the eye is experiencing rapid eye movement while dreaming. Hold momentarily. The sound of the ocean's crashing waves on the rocks can still be heard. The eye continues to move and to flutter. Slowly, the sleeper is beginning to waken, and the eye flutters open.

INT. BEDROOM--DAY

A young man jumps awake in bed, pulling himself quickly upright and letting out a little yell of surprise. The sound of the waves and the ocean is gone now. It is silent. The room is bare and sterile looking--white walls, beige carpet, a window with lace curtains along the far wall, rays of sunlight spilling in through the window and through the thin, gossamer curtains. In the room there is only a bed and a single wooden chair sitting in the spill of sunlight close to the window--a book lays spread open, face down, on the chair, bathed in the light. The young man breathes deeply, shaking himself awake, looking around slowly, gaining a bearing on his surroundings and on himself. He buries his face in his hands.

FADE OUT--"FIN"

FADE TO BLACK

*******

____________________

*  11  *

Pynchon doesn't create characters so much as mechanical men to whom a manic comic impulse or a vague free-floating anguish can attach itself, often in brilliant streams of consciousness.... The risk that Pynchon's fiction runs is boredom, repetition without significant development, elaboration that is no more than compulsiveness. For all its richness and exuberance, V. is more a wonderful, concatenated jigsaw puzzle than an esthetically coherent literary structure. The Crying of Lot 49 is smaller but better built. In Gravity's Rainbow the structure is strained beyond the breaking point. Reading it is often profoundly exasperating; the book is too long and dense; despite the cornucopia of brilliant details and grand themes one's dominant feelings in the last one to two hundred pages are a mounting restlessness, fatigue and frustration. The book doesn't feel "together."

This is a judgment about its form, but let me go a step further. One feels in the end that Pynchon's imagination is so taken with the imagery of Nazi death...that he is driven to make the plot larger and larger, to add more and more characters, to invent increasingly zany comic routines and digressions as a frantic defense against the fear and love of death--the odor of the crematorium, burnt cordite, bombed out minds and bodies, ruins. This all gets out of his control. Pynchon's sensibility and achievement here are limited by the very paranoid traits that he is ostensibly criticizing. The sentimental and comic characters and their mindless pleasures do not have the intended force to counterpoint the theme of death; the druggy, spaced-out comedy becomes too juvenile and self-indulgent to function as a real alternative.

-- Richard Locke (17)

*

At the outset of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, I couldn't help but find my mind wandering to the line from Mel Brooks' classic 1974 film, Young Frankenstein, when the frightened village father, anxiously hammering into place residual lumber to cover the windows of his modest little home, finds the time to offer throwaway advice to his wife--all doing so, of course, in the standard movie-language of stereotypical Eastern-European-Yiddish-English: "When monsters are loose, boards must be tight!" (18)

So, what do you do during a virus pandemic? Do you frantically get busy looking for layabout 2x4s, some nails, and a hammer? There is no rule-book for this sort of thing. Quarantined at home--"stuck" at home either with loved ones or by yourself--you have been encouraged [Aside: no...more than "encouraged," you've been "ordered"] to be anti-social, to be private, to stay at home, to limit your time with others, to keep your distance safely, and--basically--to just...kind of...do nothing.

[Aside: It could be worse.]

It was about now that I looked at the bookspines aligned and stacked on my shelves here at home--staring at me accusingly--and I decided one of the things I was going to "get busy" doing was finally dusting off some of them and catching up on some reading. No time like the present, after all:

• Franz Kafka's, The Metamorphosis
• Sarah Orne Jewett's, The Country of the Pointed Firs
• Daniel Defoe's, A Journal of the Plague Year
• Michael Ondaatje's, Warlight
• Edith Hall's, Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life
• Anthony Daniels', I am C-3PO: The Inside Story
• Adam Higginbotham's, Midnight at Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
• William Lee Miller's, Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography
• Mark Cousins', The Story of Film
• Noah Stryker's, The Thing With Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human
• Don DeLillo's, Point Omega
• Sarah M. Broom's, The Yellow House
• Philip Roth's, Nemesis

I made it through a handful of the books that I initially pulled down from my bookshelf, most disappearing quickly, some requiring a little more time. But still, not a bad reading list, all told. Not a bad way to spend the time, if one has the time to spend.

And then it hit me. I saw the book, its familiar light-blue spine glaring at me (as it has for years--decades). And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it:

• Thomas Pynchon's, Gravity's Rainbow

I had met my Waterloo years before. I had been bested, and I had admitted defeat. I had (or so I told myself over all these long years) confronted my strengths and weaknesses; I had made peace with my limitations; and I had moved on to other authors and to other books. But here I was at home, stuck at home--"ordered" to be at home--with nowhere else (literally) to go and not much of anything else (literally) to do.

So, what was I waiting for? An invitation? I threw down the gauntlet, then and there, and declared a rematch. I picked up the book that had beaten me 20 years before, and I turned, once more, to its first page and to its familiar first sentence: "A screaming comes across the sky." And I dived in headfirst and started swimming.

And here's the first thing I found this time around: I didn't drown. I surprisingly held my own right from the start, amidst Pynchon's sea of words and ideas, and his cast of hundreds (literally, at last count that I saw online, roughly 400 characters--give or take--throughout), and his confusing passages of mathspeak/sciencespeak (written in passages that--honestly--only physicists and engineers could reasonably grasp), and his (satirical, I know, but still somewhat glaring in 2020 America) instances of misogyny/racism/soft-core pornography/child abuse (physical, emotional, sexual, etc.), and his meandering plots, and his ventures into subplots with no destinations, and his scenes of late-60's/early-70's "free-to-be" hippiesh holdovers--complete with drugs, free love, counter-cultural references--and his playful free-association with Cold War politics and paranoia, and his (everywhere) freefloatingwaterfall of pages and pages and pages of stream-of-consciousness musing. 

I was staying afloat for quite a while during the early parts of the book. I was keeping up with it, and I was not giving in. I was impressed with myself--and with the book, to be honest. But eventually (and, really, when considering the novel's length, not all that far in, I guess--maybe around page 200-250, or so) all of my strength and my fresh outlook and my attempts to stay positive and to stay focused and motivated began to weaken and to show signs of breaking and maybe even collapsing. 

I began to hit a wall. And I wasn't very far into the book. Granted, I made it much further than my first attempt some 20 years prior. But already I was showing signs of lagging--once again--and of questioning just what the hell I was doing all of this for. What is the point of it, anyway? I mean really?

This wasn't good. All signs pointed to failure again. I wasn't up for it. While I had come a long way over the past 20 years--a lot of seismic/Pangeaic-like changes in my life, a lot of growing up and growing into the person I had finally, fully become as an adult, a lot of paradigm-shifting, and a lot of questioning, a lot of evolving--I still, perhaps, wasn't quite there. Although I had read a lot over the past 20 years and had challenged myself with some damned good books--some of the best and most thought-provoking writing I had encountered so far in my life--and although I had emerged (I think, anyway) as a confident, clearheaded, careful thinker/reader, I was still...still...finding this book of Pynchon's to be my "bridge too far," my Hastings Cutoff/Donner Pass, my Pickett's Charge, my Vietnam. It had the stink of defeat all over it again. And I was disgusted with myself, with the novel, with my decision that I had made to waste my time--this time of all times--when I could possibly be spending my quarantine-time on something more productive and (almost certainly) more fun.

It was Waterloo all over again.

So I set Gravity's Rainbow down. One more time. For a while, anyway. I would just give it a rest, I told myself. Give myself a rest. Redirect my energies and read something else. Recharge. And then try again, perhaps. And just to be sure of this, I kept my bookmark in its place (around page 250, or so) knowing full well that I didn't want to do something as foolish as remove it and lose my place altogether.

If I had done that, I knew, all my efforts up to that point would have been for nothing, and that would have been the end of it. And I would never try again.

But I simply had to take a breather, I said to myself, if for no other reason than just to read something that was a little more pleasing, maybe, and a little easier to digest, and a little less headache-inducing, and a little more rewarding at the end of the day. I set Gravity's Rainbow aside, and turned to other things. (At least for a while, anyway.)

____________________

*  12  *

The novels of Thomas Pynchon seem to take place in a vast, unfathomable cyclotron. Characters, ideas, metaphors, styles, pains, ecstasies, assorted objects from the Pyramids to paper clips all whirl about at enormous velocity. They collide, split into new forms, or suddenly decay, leaving behind only enigmatic smiles.... And now Gravity's Rainbow.... It is a funny, disturbing, exhausting and massive novel, mind-fogging in its range and permutations, its display of knowledge and virtuosity--a metaphysical, phenomenological, technological Mad Comic. The author seems to have read and understood everything from quantum mechanics, probability theory and engineering manuals to the labels on bottles of 1920s Schloss Vollrads, Tarot cards and rock lyrics. This, and much more, Pynchon catalogues and tickles into fantasies so elaborately detailed that most of his readers will come away feeling illiterate in the terms of the 20th century.... Even more than Pynchon's previous novels, Gravity's Rainbow is about man the symbol-making animal desperately trying to build a protective system of meaning over his head while at the same time blind technology increases the odds that something will bash his head in.

-- R.Z. Sheppard (19)

*

But that "breather" of mine didn't last very long. I had to keep going. I had to keep fighting the good fight. I had to keep trying and to keep pushing ahead--a page, two pages, ten, thirty, fifty, a scene, a section, a chapter, the first half of the book, the second half of the book, moving forward, forcing myself (at times). Finishing it.

I had to keep going, because the thing with Pynchon's books is--or, I should say one of the things with his books is--if you stop too long you will forget too much, because there is simply way too much to remember. If you put the book down for any extended interval you have automatically increased the chances of forgetting specific events and information, misrembering details and characters and plot strands, and growing confused and frustrated, and eventually quitting. It is best to just keep going. I knew this both from online discussion sites that I'd consulted and from my own past experience.

There is something undeniable about Gravity's Rainbow. More than any book I have ever read or have ever tried to read it brings me back and keeps me trying. And I can't explain what this "something" is. Not to anyone else, and maybe not even to myself. Not fully. Maybe not ever.

I don't know what it is. But there it is.

For some reason I have to stay with this impossibly frustrating, magnificent, maddening, funny, moving, boring, thrilling, laughably stupid, mind-alteringly intelligent, lowbrow, highbrow, philosophically complex, full-of-shit/work-of-genius, (Edward Mendelson's) "encyclopedic narrative" masterpiece--all the way to the end. Even if it means the end of me.

[Aside: "It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-----  And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." (20)]

____________________

*  13  *

"The point is," cutting off Gustav's usually indignant scream, " a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn't even have a sense of humor. I tell you," shaking his skinny old fist, "there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point is that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it or not that is the one great centripetal movement of the World. Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs. All the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are breached, the balconies are scaled--listen!"

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, Part 3: "In the Zone" (21)

*

What is wrong with the notion of spending your time with a book that you, perhaps, don't always like? Oh sure...you see the good in it, you admit to moments of its beauty, pages that promise great things, unforgettable scenes and passages of dialogue that stay lodged in your memory, the breathtaking overarching artistry of all that's accomplished in it. But still there are those times that (although you love a book for all its lovable reasons) you perhaps don't like it very much. In fact you might even hate it. What is wrong with this?

What is wrong with maybe not being entertained by a book? What if at times (much of the time, maybe) it isn't fun to read it? What if you find yourself not really connecting with the characters all the time, maybe even confused about who all the characters are and what they're supposedly up to and why? What if you get bored with a book? What do you do then? How are you supposed to feel about that? And particularly if these moments of boredom and frustration and confusion and hopeless rejection are counterbalanced with a sense of awe and fascination at all the promise that the book holds, all the moments of humor and beauty in its pages, all the sheer wonder of the fact--held in your hands and held within its crude/exalted poetry--that the book exists in the first place?

How do you answer that? How do you deal with a love-hate relationship with a book--a book that is, by all rights, considered "classic"...albeit with some admitted complications? A book that is considered timeless and worth spending time with...but is admittedly difficult? A book that you perhaps love to hate. (But you don't hate it--not really). A book that you maybe hate to love, at times. And yet you do love it. You can't deny it, nor should you.

What do you do with a book like that?

Why would anyone write a book like that? I believe this is a fair question to ask. As is its accompanying question: Why would anyone read a book like that?

The only answer to these questions I can fairly give is that a writer might feel compelled to write a book like this, and a reader might be inevitably drawn to read a book like this, because--what with all of its world-building and world-demolishing, fraught with inherent anxieties and awfulnesses and adorations--a book is nothing more than a person disguised in pages. I believe we do this with a book because a book is like a person, and we do this (or should do this) with the people in our lives all the time--the people we love and try to love, and the people who we wish (sometimes so desperately) would do something as crazy as love us back.

Books aren't perfect. People aren't perfect. Love isn't perfect. It's a wrestling match, much of the time. And it's okay to wrestle with a book. It's okay to be confused by it. It's okay to struggle with it. That's how you figure it out. That's how you get down to the book's bedrock, down to its base materials. Only in such a place can you begin to try to understand what the author really wants you to understand. Only in such a place can you begin to try to comprehend just what is really meant with the meaning between the words.

We live in an age of relative comfort, for most of us, anyway. We live at a time in history when the world is literally at our fingertips and can be accessed with lightning-speed. We have computers in our pockets and in our hands almost 24/7. We don't know what to do with ourselves. We're frustrated easily. We're angered easily. We find fault easily. We grow complacent easily. We grow listless easily. We give up easily and move on to other things easily. We don't seem to really know what it is we want and who we are. And yet we also don't really seem to know what it is we don't want and what we want to be.

We just know we would like things to be easier, and we would like things to make sense.

We are frustrated with ourselves, with our lives, with the constant barrage of contentment vs. discontentment that bombards us daily, constantly, without stop. We are bored easily--too easily--with everything and everyone (or so we say). And we don't know how to handle our dissatisfaction with life and with people. We don't know what to do with disappointment or how to handle it. And so we get bored...and then we don't know what to do with our boredom or how to handle our boredom.

[Aside: And this, by the way, is a recurring theme of postmodern/contemporary literature, this notion of boredom in our everyday contemporary lives and what to do with it. For a primer on this theme, check out some of these postmodernist writers and their novels: David Foster Wallace/The Pale King; Joseph Heller/Something Happened; Lucy Ellmann/Ducks, Newburyport; and Charlie Kaufman/Antkind.]

We don't have to think too much, if we don't really want to. We don't have to form our own opinions too much, if we don't really want to. If we don't like something or someone--for whatever reason (and what's more, we don't even have to really have a reason)--we can hit "dislike," blue thumb down, swipe left, block, delete. And then it's on to something or someone else.

It's easy to do. Way too easy.

I've done this, with persons that I've struggled to like or to love or to forgive; with friends who have made me angry; with total strangers who I find myself in opposition; with groups of people that leave me feeling divided; with political, religious, and social organizations that stir up hatred and ire, on a whim; with social media; with the media, in general; with headlines, and sound bites, and real news, and supposed "fake news," and all the news in-between somewhere, and a world leader who can't tell the difference (and, what's more, doesn't seem to care about the difference) between real and make-believe; and with a country that appears--way too often--to be coming apart, piece by piece, at the seams.

I've taken part in it myself. I know. I've joined in, to an extent. I'm guilty of doing it. I've discarded people, turned my back on them and on institutions that disagree with me or that make me disagreeable. I have quit on people. I have stopped reading books once I've started. I've given in, and I've "given it all I can give," I say, and I've given up. (It's so easy.)

But I've also done the opposite. I've struggled with people. I've fought with people. I've refused to give up on people. In certain situations, I've held on, and on, and on, and on...(much longer than any reasonable person would have or should have). In some relationships that I've found myself in over the years (and in some cases you may have to stretch the meaning of the word "relationship" like Play-Doh to its breaking point) it's been a struggle. A constant pushing and pulling. ("Come here.... No, go away.") For years, decades, at times. (It feels like a lifetime.) The pushing apart, only to pull one another back in silent, subtle ways. The flying apart. The drifting together. Disunion and union. Entropy (the natural order of things which leads to chaos and the breaking apart of order) followed by negentropy (the natural coming back together of things and the reestablishment of order). Elemental forces causing things to fly apart, while other elemental forces at work to reunite these same things. Pushing, pulling, straining, struggling.

Why would anyone do that? W hy would any two people put themselves through all of that?

I think, in those instances, it was quite simply because we thought we couldn't let it all entirely go to nothingness. What was all of that for, then? we can't help but ask. It's difficult. It's complicated. It's confusing. It's maddening. That person you see such beauty in, at other times you are consumed only with seeing her ugliness. It's all around you and all you can see. That person who you hate (or convince yourself that you hate), at other times all you can think about is how much you love her. Or did.

        "But look at what she's done," the voices insist. "All that's been said and done. All this time."

        "Yes," you answer, "I know, but...."

And therein lies the tale. "Yes, I know, but...." Difficult relationships with difficult people can teach you more than you ever knew about who you are, and the person you want to be, and all that it is possible for you, maybe--somehow--to forgive. Difficult people also show you how to move on. They show you exactly when and how to stop and to walk away, if it's apparent there is no other reasonable choice. But difficult people show you how to love them, too--faults and all--if you're willing and patient and open enough to let them. But you have to be willing and patient and open enough to let them. (Which is not always easy or fun.) Similarly, difficult books teach you how to read them. You just have to be willing to learn--if you are comfortable enough to sit back, and to reserve judgment, and to let the book slowly reveal itself to you. (Which is not always easy or fun, either.)

This notion of reading only for entertainment's sake is a stubborn holdover from our childhood. From our earliest ages we learn the idea that art--books, stories, poems, movies, songs, etc.--exists solely to make us smile and to feel good. To make us laugh. To make us satisfied with the antique pablum, "And they all lived happily ever after...." Art is there to prop up our escapist worldview: All is in its place and as it should be. We need that confirmation when we're young. We don't need it in quite the same way when we're 50 years old. When we are children learning to read, books exist for our sake. When we have grown older and have learned to deepen our reading and our understanding of the world, we learn (sometimes in a bitter contest of will and ego) that we exist for art's sake. It's a switch, a reversal. And if you don't or can't make that reversal, then you, as a reader, will spend the rest of your adult life still under the mistaken notion that art (a book, for example) is solely there to serve you. To make you happy. To make you feel better about yourself, perhaps. To keep you entertained. To pass your time. To fill your bored and dissatisfied existence with the notion that you are fine and that everything is fine and that nothing could be better.

When, often, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Sometimes art is ugly. Sometimes art is brutal, and painful, and shockingly disturbing, and upsetting. Sometimes you hate it. Sometimes you want to turn away from it. And sometimes you do turn away from it (and are meant to). And sometimes you turn back toward the art (and are meant to). As a way of example: For my entire life, I've been under the impression that I had a fairly complete understanding of the terms "anti-war film." A lot of cinema, over the years, has been dedicated to that genre, after all. But it wasn't until recently, watching two films (both of them for the first time), that everything I thought I knew and understood about the "anti-war" film was upended. I had heard of both films--interestingly, they had both been released in 1985--but I'd simply never taken the time (or simply never had the opportunity, perhaps) to watch them. Until  now.

French documentarian Claude Lanzmann and his monumental documentary opus, Shoah, is a nearly 10-hour slow-slide into the grueling oblivion of the Nazi's "final solution" of its infamous death camps. Similarly, Soviet filmmaker Elem Klimov offered his harrowing glimpse, Come and See, through the gaze of his teenage male protagonist at the brutal annihilation of the rural Belarusian countryside from the incendiary hands of Nazi forces during W.W. II.

Two films, two works of art, dealing with difficult, challenging subject matter. Each film told in its own ways, in brutal imagery and construction of scene upon scene upon scene of unrelenting, horrifying ugliness--the worst in humanity. It's admittedly difficult to watch these movies. It is painful to watch them. Both films--Shoah and Come and See--will teach you, over the course of their viewing-times, how to watch them. How to understand them. How to make sense of the senselessness in them. How to absorb them. And once you allow the movies to work on this level, once you settle in to them and allow them to work in this way, you will never forget them. And you will understand their purpose. And you will understand why they were made. And why someone might want to watch them.

We need cinema like this--we need art like this--just as much as we need the cinema of Jurassic Park or Toy Story. There is room for it all. And we need music, painting, and writing that makes us feel good and happy and content; there's nothing wrong with that. That's important. But we also need songs, paintings, films, and books that will push us, and push us, and push us, waiting--wanting--for us to push back. To show that we are paying attention. We are invested in the outcome, after all. And to show that we care, or that we want to care, or that we can't care, or that we hate this but that we need this. All at the same time. 

We need difficult, challenging, complicated art to show us that we are alive and that we are here to feel love and hate; and that we are willing to experience beauty and ugliness; and that we want to feel comfort and struggle; and that we want to endure and learn and move on and grow. We want to experience the coming together and the falling apart of existence--the natural dissolution of chaos, the pulling at everything from opposite strings into eventual and inevitable disarray; only to be found again and to be brought back together, perhaps, under the weighted hand and the formative force of gravity.

____________________

*  14  *

Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
'Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you're straightway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain -

-- Emily Dickinson, "Much Madness is divinest Sense - " #435 (22)

*

        "This ascent will be betrayed to Gravity. But the Rocket engine, the deep cry of combustion that jars the soul, promises escape. The victim, in bondage to falling, rises on a promise, a prophecy, of Escape. . . ." (23)

        The time is short now. He is almost at its end, finally, after all this time. His voice, the only voice he's ever known, has grown thin with his reading every chapter, every page, and sentence, and word. It has taken a long time, and he is tired. But it is almost over now. He pauses to look around him, to memorize once more the room he has memorized so well over the past days, weeks, and months. Has it been years? Just him alone now. Alone with the book, his only companion. The only voice, the chorus of voices ringing from its pages.
        But they're not real. Not really. Not anymore. Maybe not ever. Right now it's just him, as it's always been.
        But he knows that's not true, either. Wasn't there a time, a day long ago? Was it always like this? Just him, and the book, sitting on a chair by the window, or sitting cross-legged on the floor by the window, or lying on the floor by the window--the sunlight pouring through the shade, the thin gossamer of the lace curtain brushing against his cheek sometimes if he gets too close to it or when the air comes on and blows through the vent, drowning his voice, choking back the words.
        It has taken the life of him reading this book aloud, speaking down into the metal floor-grate of the air vent, down into the metal ductwork snaking below the floor and along the walls and above in the ceiling, in the rafters, all around him. His voice traveling through the world around him, sometimes thin and tired--as it is now--sometimes bold and strong, like it was when he was younger. Sitting on a chair by the window, face aimed downward at the carpeted floor, the vent at his feet. Speaking aloud to the room, to himself, and to the ductwork, and to whoever there was to listen.
        We read to know we are alone.
        But he is aware of something now. Something that maybe he's always known but was only afraid to say to himself. He doesn't want to say it now. He only wants to read, to speak the words, to finish the story (he is so close to the end he can feel it in the fingers of his hands and in his heart). The catch in his voice. It is so close. And the time is short now.

        "'The edge of evening . . . the long curve of people all wishing on the first star. . . . Always remember those men and women along the thousands of miles of land and sea. The true moment of shadow is the moment in which you see the point  of light in the sky. The single point, and the Shadow that has just gathered you in its sweep . . .'" (24)

        The days are bright outside the window, and the sun stays long, as it always does in the summer. The season is late now, or so it seems to him, and the skies haven't brought rain for weeks or for months. He tries not to look outside the window because there usually isn't all that much to see. Mainly, though, he just knows he shouldn't. And so he doesn't. He just sits most of the time, either on his chair or on the floor, and sometimes he'll lay down on the floor, too, without a pillow under his arm or his head, and he'll read aloud the story from the book. He speaks into the vent, though he doesn't think anyone is there to hear him anymore these days. Not the way there used to be, anyway. This is not the house where he used to live, after all. Or if it is, things have moved on; things have changed. There's no one now to hear him. No one on the other end. No audience to hear the story that he has read for so long, one word at a time, one sentence at a time, down into the vent, down into the ringing metal of the tunnel that wraps around him and rings his voice back to him, at times. Alone.

        "And it is just here, just at this dark and silent frame, that the pointed tip of the Rocket, falling nearly a mile per second, absolutely and forever without sound, reaches its last unmeasurable gap above the roof of the old theatre, the last delta-t." (25)

        It's like saying Goodbye to an old friend, he thinks to himself. Almost it is. The words coming fast now, the pages thin and gone beneath his fingers. There is nothing to hold on to now. There is nowhere to go, his eyes drawing ever downward on the page, toward the end, the beginning of the white space closing in on the last of the printed type. He savors the moment, draws it out, tasting it like a candy he remembers from when he was a boy, holding on to that flavor for as long as he can.
        But it's over now. At long last he can see the end. He can see the way it's over. And it's really not as bad as he once thought it would be. It's really not as sad as he once feared, either. The book is over. He has read it all, aloud, to no one but himself. His final recitation of only two words--the book's closing thought. How it begins with a missile's scream, he laughs, and ends with a song. A dance--a bit of old vaudeville. A chorus of disparate voices (ranging 400 or more). And a quiet, whispered invitation, a beckoning toward erasure. And then it's over.
        And the rest, when it comes, he knows, is silence.

        "Now everybody----" (26)

____________________

*

NOTES

 (1):  Waters, Roger. "Brain Damage." The Dark Side of the Moon. Harvest/EMI. Prod. Alan Parsons. 1973. Music.

 (2):  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_in_the_United_States#:. Web.

 (3):  Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition. Penguin Books: New York City. 1995. (pg. 756). Print.

 (4):  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishinoshima_(Ogasawara). Web.

 (5):  ibid

 (6):  Knives Out. Dir. Rian Johnson. Lionsgate, 2019. Film.

 (7):  Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition. Penguin Books: New York City. 1995. (pg. 275). Print.

 (8):  Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition. Penguin Books: New York City. 1995. (pg.  3). Print.

 (9):  https://lithub.com/the-50-best-one-star-amazon-reviews-of-thomas-pynchons-gravitys-rainbow/. Web.

(10.):  ibid

(11):  The Exorcist. Dir. William Friedkin. Warner Brothers. 1973. Film.

(12):  Caesar, Ed. "Don DeLillo: A Writer Like No Other," The Sunday Times (London), Feb. 21, 2010. Print.

(13):  Lewis, C.S. "Learning in War-Time." The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. The MacMillan Company. 1949. Print.

(14):  Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition. Penguin Books: New York City. 1995. (pg. 644-5). Print.

(15):  Alighieri, Dante. Divine Comedy: The Inferno. Trans. Robert Pinskey. The Noonday Press: New York City. 1994. Canto I, lines 1-2 (pg. 3). Print.

(16):  Salm, Arthur. "A Screaming Comes Across the Sky (but Not a Photo)," San Diego Union-Tribune, Feb. 8 2004. Print.

(17):  Locke, Richard. "One of the Longest, Most Difficult, Most Ambitious Novels in Years," The New York Times Book Review, March 11, 1973. Print.

(18):  Young Frankenstein. Dir. Mel Brooks. 20th Century Fox. 1974. Film.

(19):  Sheppard, R.Z. "V. Squared," Time Magazine, March 15, 1973. Print.

(20):  Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby (1925). Scribner Paperback Edition. Scribner: New York City. 2003. (pg. 189). Print.

(21):  Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition. Penguin Books: New York City. 1995. (pg. 440). Print.

(22):  Dickinson, Emily. "Much Madness is divinest Sense - " (#435). The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Little, Brown and Company: Boston. 1960. (pg. 209). Print.

(23):  Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition. Penguin Books: New York City. 1995. (pg. 758). Print.

(24):  ------ . (pg. 759-60).

(25):  ------ . (pg. 760).

(26):  ibid

*

APPENDIX A

(A Short Cross-Section, in No Certain Order,

of Some of the "Big," "Important," and/or "Difficult" Books

the Author Has Read...So Far)

• Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
• All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy: Volume One), Cormac McCarthy
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
• The Odyssey, Homer
• The Iliad, Homer
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• American Pastoral, Philip Roth
• Nemesis, Philip Roth
• Beowulf, (Anonymous)
• Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
• All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
• Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien
• The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
• In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien
• The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
• American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
• Catch-22, Joseph Heller
• Something Happened, Joseph Heller
• Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson
• Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
• Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
• The Poems of Robert Frost, Robert Frost
• My Antonia, Willa Cather
• Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian
• Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
• Dubliners, James Joyce
• Ulysses, James Joyce
• The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
• The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
• The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
• Native Son, Richard Wright
• Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
• Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories, Raymond Carver
• All of Us: The Collected Poems, Raymond Carver
• The Overstory, Richard Powers
• Beloved, Toni Morrison
• Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
• On the Road, Jack Kerouac
• Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
• Watership Down, Richard Adams
• The Plague Dogs, Richard Adams
• White Noise, Don DeLillo
• Underworld, Don DeLillo
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
• The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
• A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
• The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
• East of Eden, John Steinbeck
• Walden, Henry David Thoreau
• The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace
• Infiinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
• Ariel, Sylvia Plath
• The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
• Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
• Purity, Jonathan Franzen
• The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
• Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
• 1984, George Orwell
• The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
• The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
• Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
• Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
• The Shining, Stephen King
• The Stand, Stephen King
• It, Stephen King
• The Brothers Karamazov, Fydor Dostoevsky
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker
• Dune, Frank Herbert
• Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
• David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
• Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
• Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
• Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
• Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
• The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
• The World According to Garp, John Irving
• The Cider House Rules, John Irving
• A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
• The Nix, Nathan Hill
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux
• Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
• Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
• A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius, Dave Eggers
• Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
• Giles Goat-Boy, John Barth
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
• The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• 1Q84, Haruki Murakami
• The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
• Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
• Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
• Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
• Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon *
• etc.

   *  (Finished: 7/21/20)

*

APPENDIX B

(A Short Cross-Section, in No Certain Order,

of Some of the "Big," "Important," and/or "Difficult" Books

the Author Has Not Read...So Far)

• Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce *
• Roots, Alex Haley
• Shogun, James Clavell
• The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu
• Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Sabbath's Theater, Philip Roth
• The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
• Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
• Cities of the Plain (The Border Trilogy: Volume Three), Cormac McCarthy
• The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann
• Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
• Crime and Punishment, Fydor Dostoevsky
• A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
• Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
• Bleak House, Charles Dickens
• The Recognitions, William Gaddis
• J R, William Gaddis
• Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
• Kafka on the Shore, Huruki Murakami
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, (Anonymous)
• The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
• The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer
• Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, Vladimir Nabakov
• Hangsaman, Shirley Jackson
• Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
• A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
• 2666, Roberto Bolano
• The Sagas of Icelanders, (Anonymous)
• The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
• House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski **
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
• Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
• The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick
• The Magus, John Fowles
• The Collector, John Fowles
• The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
• The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
• Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
• 4 3 2 1, Paul Auster
• V., Thomas Pynchon
• Slow Learner: Early Stories, Thomas Pynchon
• Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon
• Bleeding Edge, Thomas Pynchon
• Libra, Don DeLillo
• Mao II, Don DeLillo
• The Aeneid, Virgil
• The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
• The Once and Future King, T.H. White
• The Pale King, David Foster Wallace
• The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
• Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann ***
• Antkind, Charlie Kaufman ****
• etc.

      *  (I just don't know about this one. I'm bold and daring, but... Again, I know my limitations.)

    **  (I don't know about this one, either...)

  ***  (1,000 + pages, told in a--basically--single sentence stream-of-consciousness burst, from the central consciousness of an Ohio woman/mother/housewife. The sound of it almost reminds me, somewhat, of Chantal Akerman's 1975 film masterpiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. I honestly can't wait to tackle this book. What the fuck is wrong with me? Have I learned nothing?)  https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/can-one-sentence-capture-all-of-life

****  (A nearly 800-page postmodern experiment--another one--in which the protagonist, a film critic in existential crisis mode, has viewed a stop-motion film that takes 3 months to watch, and then the film is destroyed, and then he must recreate it from memory, frame-by-frame. No, I'm serious.... Call me crazy, but--like above--I can't wait to read this. Again, what the fuck is wrong with me? Have I learned nothing?)  https://slate.com/culture/2020/07/charlie-kaufman-novel-antkind-book-review.html

*

APPENDIX C

(A Short Cross-Section, in No Certain Order,

of Some of the "Big," "Important," and/or "Difficult" Books

the Author Has Started--With the Best of Intentions--but Left Unfinished...So Far)

• Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time: Volume One), Marcel Proust
• War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
• The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt *
• Lolita, Vladimir Nabakov
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
• L'Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
• The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel, Amy Hempel
• Paradise Lost, John Milton
• The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Dark Tower (Series), Stephen King
• The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson
• The Crossing (The Border Trilogy: Volume Two), Cormac McCarthy
• Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel, Susanna Clarke
• A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
• Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
• The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
• The Golden Bowl, Henry James
• Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
• Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
• Forty Stories, Donald Barthelme
• The Collected Stories of Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor
• etc.

   *  (I've tried twice. I honestly can't do it--and what's more important, maybe, I don't seem to want to do it. I think I'm alone on this one, though, so someone please tell me what I'm missing here with Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.)

 

____________________

Nine Minutes, Nine Different Ways: a primary source (6/1/20)

Monday, March 25, 2020

Minneapolis, MN

____________

1

"I can't
breathe
please the
knee
in my
neck
my stomach
hurts
everything hurts
please
don't kill
me
Mama I'm
through"

2

"I
can't breathe
please
the knee
in
my neck
my
stomach hurts
everything
hurts please
don't
kill me
Mama
I'm through"

3

"I can't breathe
please

the knee in
my

neck my stomach
hurts

everything hurts please
don't

kill me Mama

I'm
through"

4

"Ican'tbreathepleasethekneeinmyneckmystomachhurtseverythinghurtspleasedon'tkillmeMAMAI'mthrough"

5

"I can't breathe please the
knee in my neck my stomach
hurts everything hurts

please
          don't
                    kill

me Mama I'm through"

6

"I can't breathe please
the knee in my
neck my stomach hurts
everything hurts please don't

kill me Mama I'm
                              through"

7

"I CAN'T
(breathe)

     please
theknee
           in my
                              NECK
my   stomach
HURTS

(everythinghurts)    please

DON'T KILL ME

                    Mama

I'mthrough"

8

"I

can't

breathe

please

the

knee

in

my

neck

my

stomach

hurts

everything

hurts

please

don't

kill

me

Mama

I'm

through"

9

"I can't

breathe

               please

     the knee in

my neck

my stomach
hurts          everything
          hurts

               please
          don't
     kill 
me

Ma
ma

          I'm



                                                  through"

Spring Day: a primary source (5/28/20)

A spotted fox snake
slips smooth from damp cool into
morning warmth. I watch.

Gentle rain, mid-day,
birdsong loud in clear, washed air.
(What is it they sing?)

Rabbits taste their fill,
licking drops from blades of grass,
ears tall, turned to me.

Sunset fire, old oak,
runnelled bark glowing orange-red
--a fine ambered scotch.

Nightfall, moon is low,
softened wind in trees beyond
whispers, all alone.

Trash-Talking: a primary source (5/21/20)

This morning was like all the ones before,
except, of course, how I forgot the all-
important step of pouring coffee grinds
into this old coffeemaker of mine.
Missing was the familiar deep-rich waft
of the dark-roasted Colombian bean.
Waiting for me, instead, when the machine
finished--something warmed and murky, but not
coffee, not anything remotely close.
I felt a moment's pity for myself
and for the ruined, empty, wasted filter,
its recycled life, raison d'etre,
now in the trash atop yesterday's used
filter--smug, proud, smirking, clutching its dregs.

Intimacies: a primary source (5/6/20)

"Grief makes everything intimate."

-- John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

__________

These days we say "Hello" to strangers on our walks.
I mean, not just the noncommittal nod and raised wave,
but we actually say, "Hello,"
along with, "How are you?"
to people we don't even know but feel we do.
"How are you?" we ask,
and we mean it.

These days we meet alone together
for micro-concerts from musicians
in their living-rooms not all that different
from our own, we notice, feeling a new connection to them.
Oh, I have that pillow--or used to, at least.
And that sconce, that picture: She likes horses.

And these days we gather separately as one
in the cluttered study of a former poet laureate,
who sits at a book-strewn desk--volumes of his published verse
sticky-noted with fluorescent flags to mark his pages,
semaphore motioning us forward,
speaking to us,
calling us in.

A silver shovel leans alone
against the back wall behind him
below a painted airplane
in clouds.

These days are the days of silent applause, assent, acclamation.
A choir of colorful voices singing in
yellow smiles, red hearts, blue thumbs.
Some to say, "I love you."
Some to say, "Thank you."
Some to say, "How are you?"
Some to say, "I hope all is well."
Some to say, "I miss you."
Some to say, "I will miss this."
Some to say, "This is good."
Some to say, "This means something."
Some to say, "Stay."
Some to say, "Don't go away."
Some to say, "I love you."

But these days I wonder if
(when all of this is over)
we really will remember.
Will we recall these days of forced separateness,
quarantined togetherness,
lonely intimacies forged of necessity,
longing, longed for, long-distance?

Cautious eyes catching glances
over our masks we wear to meet the masks we meet,
we carry along with us the ache of episodic memory,
though we don't go anywhere with it, these days,
aside from deeper into memory, deeper into ache,
like a stubbed toe in the dark, perhaps,
reminding us that this is what the world feels like,
this is what the living feel,
and consoling us with
some remembered future scene--

a crowded restaurant,
a single table,
the din of noise, and conversation, and kitchen
silverware and dishes and cups,
and laughter, and music.
A young waitress not old enough yet to call me "Hon"
will balance coffee in hand, my bill in the other,
and set it in a syrup spill beside my plate.
She will smile at me, then, and ask the inevitable about a refill,
adding, in a cigarette-voice beyond her years,
"Was everything good here, hon?"
And I will smile back to her, my mask at home, and answer,
"Yes. It was. Thank you. Everything was good...."
And I will mean it.

"Act of God Days": a primary source (3/21/20)

*     *     *

This is new. And yet, at the same time, not new. It's all rather inescapably old, actually.

*     *     *

An unintentional history buff, of sorts, I've always read up on the accounts of pestilence, and plague, and privation that have accosted mankind--all acting very much...well...like a pest--throughout history. The influenza epidemic of 1918. The ceaseless waves of the Black Plague that ebbed and flowed centuries ago, pitilessly drowning out uncountable portions of Europe in its recurring flood.

An intentional English/Language Arts teacher, by trade, I've taught--uncountable times--the history of Elizabethan England, and the Bard, and the role of the theater in Shakespeare's day, and the cycles of invasion from the unseen enemy, carried by fleas, that caused panic, and disruption, and death. Time and time again, the plague would rear its head, and time and time again an aristocratic decree would go forth, closing public meeting places: pubs, churches, theaters--anywhere where people could gather in large groups; anywhere where people could be found congregating, talking, laughing, sharing their lives, living.

It foolishly never occurred to me that it would happen here (to me, to us, to mankind) in my lifetime. Not seriously, anyway. Oh sure, of course I was blindly aware of the chances. I was aware of the increasing likelihood, given the explosion of the world's population, the shrinking of the world through the ease of travel, and the fluctuating health codes around the world, and environmental changes during modern history. It was always all there, swirling like some dark witch's brew, waiting, hinting of itself, teasing us with the occasional SARS outbreak, or Ebola scare, or bioterrorism threat, and the like.

It all sounded like the latest apocalyptic end-of-the-world movie plot. It all read like a great, dark, dystopian metaphor of the future or alternate universe, from the minds of writers like George Orwell, or Margaret Atwood, or Albert Camus, or Stephen King. But it wasn't real. It couldn't really be real. It was just entertainment. It was art. It was something to be mindful of. Something to heed. Something to admire. Something to study. But not something real. It was just there...

And now it's here. And it's real.

*     *     *

I teach high school English. (Old-fashioned reading and writing--the basics--the required core subject, the one that never quite seems to go away.) I've been an English teacher now for over 20 years. I began teaching 7th-8th grade Language Arts, and then returned to school, myself, to get a master's degree in Literature/Writing, with the idea of someday pursuing a doctoral program. I wanted to be a college professor somewhere, Dr. Newsom, PhD, walking the quad in my tweed jacket, a couple of books stashed under my arm for safekeeping, a leather satchel swinging by my side. The whole look. The whole thing.

[Aside: "O Captain! My Captain!..."]

While that didn't quite take shape the way I imagined, perhaps, I did at least complete my master's degree, allowing me to teach adjunct classes at nearby smaller colleges, as well as giving me the opportunity to teach online college courses and dual-credit classes offered to students in various ways today.

Over the past 15 years, I have steadily taught English at a local high school in my little sub-suburban area southwest of Chicago. These days, I primarily teach seniors and juniors in high school. And it's been a good gig. Of course I could complain. (Teachers are good at that, take my word for it.) But, all in all, I can't really complain too much. My job is a good job. And I think I'm pretty good at it. And I like it.

With the emergence of COVID-19 (a.ka. the "Novel Coronavirus") in the United States, schools, last week, began to close. At first--in apparent confusion at what was actually happening and how quickly it was all happening--state governors, and state education boards, and local school districts scrambled to come up with an immediate joint-plan. Schools would be closed temporarily, they decided, at least through the end of March. Schools would use their normal "Emergency Days"--held in reserve (again, in normal situations) for normal occurrences, like snow days. State governors and state education boards then moved to grant "Act of God Days" to local districts (days beyond the normal, contractual Emergency Days) that would extend indefinitely, and that would not be held against students (who would be--through no fault of their own--obviously falling short of the normally required 180 days of school attendance), and that would not have to be accounted for nor made up.

It wasn't long, though, before some states (including my home state of Kansas) declared the 2019-20 school year officially over. It was a wash, Gov. Laura Kelly declared; there would be no resuming of classes. Soon, a few other states fell in line.

[Aside: There will be more.]

Yesterday, Friday, March 20, Illinois Governor, JB Pritzker, declared that his state (along, so far, with two other states, New York and California) would be issued a "shelter-in-place" order (or a "stay-at-home" order), beginning at 5 p.m. the following day, Saturday (today), March 21, and running (at least for right now, anyway) through Tuesday, April 7.

And so it begins.

*     *     *

My cupboards are fairly stocked with food. I did some quick grocery shopping before all of this, but I admittedly wasn't very careful (or not as careful as I could have been) when grabbing things from the shelves to have at home. I have enough to get by for now. But eventually I'm going to have to venture out and restock on the necessities--food, toiletries, drink, and the like.

The thought of venturing out is a little unnerving. I won't lie. While we are allowed to resume our "normal lives" within reason--such as venturing out for "essentials" only--we are required to remain at home as much as possible. We are required to limit our going out to things like groceries, gas, visits to the doctor, to the pharmacy, going for walks, running, being outside, breathing the fresh air, all within safe "social distancing" of 6 ft. or so.

It all seems so surreal, but this is our "new normal." (I already hate that tired phrase.)

*     *     *

Right now, restaurants are closed, except for "curb service" and delivery. I already miss going out to eat. Something as simple and as privileged as that.

*     *     *

Will liquor stores be allowed to stay open? Is alcohol considered an "essential," during these "Act of God" days?

*     *     *

I'm divorced. I have been for 16 years, now.

[Aside: Jesus Christ, how is that possible?]

My daughters are now 20 and 17 years old, respectively. My older daughter is in college--currently attending a local community college, with plans to transfer, next year, to Illinois University-Purdue University Indianapolis, studying Forensic Biology. My younger daughter is a senior in high school this year. [Aside: My heart breaks for her...] Her plans, upon graduation, are to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying Pre-Dentistry.

Right now, at this very moment as I write, they are with their mother. They live not even 5 minutes from my door. She and I agreed--unspokenly, even--on an amicable divorce, particularly with the girls. And I've always been proud of that. When they were younger, my daughters split their time between their mother and me, basically half-and-half, at times. Now that they're older, I don't see them as often--what with their friends, and with school, and with being girls of that age.

I get it. But I'm used to being alone, I guess I'm trying to say.

Still, I miss them. And I think of them all the time. Literally. And I wish, right now, that they were here with me, I won't lie. But I check in with them daily, several times throughout the day (as I have always done), and it comforts me to know that they are safe.

But still...

*     *     *

I read. I go for walks. I currently take my temperature three times a day--just to check. I listen to music. I'm having a pretty good time, actually, digging through my old album collection, rediscovering stuff I haven't listened to for years. I watch movies--I love the art of cinema. 

[Aside: This is not necessarily a time of cruel-and-unusual punishment for me, in other words.]

Of course, I spend an inordinate amount of time on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, et al. Of course, there are our phones, our social media, our connections with others and with the outside world. Our families. Our friends.

All of this was/is so easy to take for granted. Maybe something like this virus will reprogram our brains a little bit. Give our souls a little reshuffle. A reset.

I think we all could use that.

*     *     *

My immediate family--my mother and my three brothers--all live states away. I moved the furthest away from home, drifting toward the Chicago area in 1995. My mother still lives, alone (after my father's death in 2008), in the old farmhouse where I grew up in the middle of Kansas. My oldest brother stayed home with his family and works the farm. My second brother lives with his family in Omaha, Nebraska. My younger brother lives with his family in Kansas City, Kansas.

We've always been close, and we've always kept in touch with one another, albeit sporadically at times. I have them, and I check in with them more regularly these days, and they with me. And that's a good thing. I miss them.

*     *     *

Being a teacher, I'm trying to work from home, as we've been directed to do. In the mornings, I'm trying to maintain some sort of scheduled normalcy when it comes to my job. "Remote Learning" is the sudden term these days, and so I have all my junior and senior English classes set up on Google Classroom, and Zoom, and I check in with them (I "Zoom" with them--this is the world we live in now), and I assign them chapters to read from their novels (which I can only hope they have with them at home during this time), and I sometimes provide links to articles and to essays online, urging them to comment and to respond. Urging them to stay awake to the world around them. Urging them to pay attention. To observe. To record. To learn. 

My students (as well as myself, my family, my daughters, my friends, everyone I know and don't know) are all living through history right now. We are, most definitely, living "in the moment."

Are we awake? Are we adequately paying attention? Are we observing what's happening to the world--to the larger world, certainly, but also to our immediate, personal worlds? Are we recording our thoughts, our feelings, our anxieties, our desires, our fears, our loves? Are we aware of any of that, even?

Are we learning?

*     *     *

In the realm of research writing, I teach my students that there are two basic types of sources that they will always come across, no matter the topic.

1.) Primary Source

2.) Secondary Source

A "primary source" is exactly that: It is a primary piece of writing (or video, or music, or whatever) that someone took the time to record during a moment in history. A primary source comes directly in and from the moment it is produced. It is an historical time capsule, an actual expression of thoughts, and feelings, and anxieties, and desires, and fears, and loves, perfectly (or imperfectly) set down and preserved for posterity.

A "secondary source," then, is also exactly what it says it is: It is a source removed from the primary source (once, or twice, or 200 times removed), written and/or recorded by someone commenting, from a distance, on the primary source, itself.

We are in "Act of God Days," to be sure. We are also living in "primary source" days.

*     *     *

Tonight, I re-watched (yes, on Netflix) the 1993 Bill Murray film, Groundhog Day. I love that movie. It's funny. It's well written. It's insightful and incisive. It lasts. It deserves to be called a classic. 

[Aside: I also might mention that the nature of that film's story never seemed quite so unnervingly relevant as it does now. But I digress....]

I watched the movie, this time, long-distance with a friend of mine. She lives about 30 minutes from me and is currently at home. All is good. But we decided, tonight, to call one another, and to scan the list of movies on our menus (a comedy, for God's sake!), and we struck an easy deal with Groundhog Day. We then, each of us, fixed ourselves a drink, settled into our favorite chair and/or couch (30 miles from one another), synchronized our starts via our remote controls, and stayed on the phone as we talked, and laughed, and watched the movie "together."

*     *     *

Where I live, I have a nice view onto my backyard, butted up against a wooded area, as it is. There are animals--the occasional possum, or raccoon, or deer, or coyote. Beyond the woods and the narrow creek (Nettle Creek, it's called) that flows behind me, I can hear (always, incessantly) the hum of traffic along Interstate-80, flowing, at all times, to and from Chicago, and to points east and west beyond.

The semi-trucks continue to roll along the highway, I notice. I can hear them and even see them, with the trees being bare of leaves at this time of year. And my heart actually swells at the sound and the sight of them. Who knew that it would be truckdrivers, of all professions, who would be counted among our heroes during these days? And the nurses, and the doctors, and the law-enforcement, and the first-responders. They are working to keep life going. They are working to keep some sense of status quo in the midst of our disruption. They are working to keep some sense of humanity and normalcy alive.

It's happening. There is life outside my windows.

*     *     *

I watch the birds in my backyard. The robins are out--it's spring, after all. That's what robins do. They're still hopping through the grass, heads cocked to the ground, listening for their worms. The occasional cardinal makes an appearance still--I have a couple of flashes of red and red-grey that live in the trees behind me. And the occasional streak of blue-and-white from the bluejays living not far above me. I used to have an owl that took up residence in an old, dead oak, but I haven't seen or heard from the wise old bird in a long time--ever since the oak tree fell in a storm. The owl must have flown on, carrying with it its lonely, haunting call. Later in the spring and in the summer, I will again put out my hummingbird feeder and see if I can draw their petite attention.

Grey squirrels are at play (or are they fighting? it's so hard to tell with squirrels), chasing each other candy-cane striped fashion up the trunks of the trees in the woods behind me. In time, the large family of rabbits that populate the gently sloped hill in my backyard will come out from their winter sleep, and I will sit on my deck again and watch them contentedly chewing their blades of grass in the quiet of early evenings before dusk. Before sunset. Before nightfall.

I will watch for them.

Life goes on.

The Revolution is Definitely Going to Be Televised: Netflix, the Local Cineplex, and the Movie Year that Was

These are interesting days to be a film buff.

We're fortunate, I think, to be in the middle of a revolution these days of film and film production. There's a fight going on (whether you care or are aware of it or not) for not only the kind of movies that are being made today but also the manner in which films are being made, marketed, and released today.

Modern streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, et al. have changed the game in determining what movies we want presented to us, how we want to select our movies, and how we want to watch our movies. It is to stay at home these days--in the comfort and ease of our overstuffed chairs and couches, and our overstuffed surroundings, and our overstuffed sweatpants and pajamas, and our overstuffed flat-screen TVs in the corner of the room.

It is comfortable and easy these days to stay home and download a movie, or stream it, or simply "pirate it" (let's be honest). Going to the old-school trouble of actually getting dressed to step outside, and face the elements, and confront the crowds, and do the unthinkable of entering the age-old traditional movie-theater cineplex for something as old-fashioned crazy as "going to the movies" takes some revolutionary courage, itself, today. The playing field has evolved, and it is perhaps not what we knew when we were growing up.

All in an attempt to rebuff this growing competition, a pleasant outgrowth of this battle is the fact that it's never been more comfortable to go to the movie-theaters and to watch a movie. In many places, ticket prices have lowered to somewhat reasonable levels.

[Aside: It would be nice, now, if the movie-theaters' concessions stands would follow suit. I'm sort of tired of being gobsmacked by laying down a crisp $20 bill on the counter for a small Coke and a small popcorn and not receiving any change back. But I digress....]

Nowadays, a moviegoer is expected (and almost required) to visit the theater's online site first, buy tickets there, and reserve seats. Which means, of course, no more unnecessary standing in unnecessary lines. No more worrying about getting a good seat. No more worrying period, for that matter. It's easy. It's simple. It's guaranteed, every time.

And speaking of seats: Movie-theaters have gone the extra mile in completely restructuring and redesigning the whole idea of movie-theater seating. Nowadays, most up-to-date cineplexes come complete with oversized, soft-leather reclining seats, warming coils, blankets, and swivel trays for food and drink. And young theater-staff serve as waiters and waitresses now, bringing your concessions orders directly from the lobby to you, as you sit comfortably in the dark in your seat.

[Aside: But unfortunately you're still not getting back any change for your snacks.]

It is, admittedly, an elegant improvement. And if it's keeping movie-theaters alive in 2019--getting people to leave the comfort of home and the convenience of their Netflix subscription to face the weather, and the traffic, and the crowds, and the reality of traditional movie-viewing at these new, modernized movie-houses--then so be it. There is still (even in this jaded, uber-downloadable age of the late 2010s) something to be said, after all, for going to the movie-theater to see a movie. The smell of the popcorn that hits you at the front door, making your mouth water. The richness and the fullness of the sound system. The clarity and the crispness of the digital projection. The vastness of the big screen.

Going to the movies is still an event, just as it's always been. But now--with so many other streaming challengers vying for our time and attention (and, let's face it, the simplicity of just staying at home in our sweatpants and our pajamas and "ordering up" a movie online is hard to compete against; there's no getting around it)--movie theaters have a monumental task ahead of them if they're going to stay relevant and alive. Movie theaters have a mountain to climb, now, if they're going to hold on to their place as a cathedral, of sorts--a holy place, the grail castle, holding in our hearts the nostalgic, traditional memory of the place where we go, with strangers in a darkened room, to experience the experience of the movies.

But along with all of this, then, is another interesting wrinkle to the story. Streaming services (like, particularly, Netflix, again) have proven--at a remarkably fast pace--to be a formidable competitor. Not only did Netflix learn to play the game early on with movie theaters, but in recent years the company has grown into a powerful movie studio system in its own right. As a result, Netflix has changed not only the rules of the game but also the very layout of the playing field.

Netflix is not a joke, in other words. It really is here to stay, it would seem. And while it's here, it is determined to earn its share (and more) of movie audiences. And it's doing this by quickly expanding into the movie-production business. Of course, for many years now it has created its own original series, and specials, and shows, available only by subscription. But in no time at all (and I mean in what seems like a mere blink of an eye), Netflix Studios has moved into the world of financing, producing, and marketing a growing roll call of impressive, award-worthy motion pictures. Netflix has entered the ring with the big boys--United Artists, Paramount, Universal, et al.--and has established itself, quickly, as a powerhouse to be reckoned with.

Just for example, let's take a look back at 2018, when suddenly little Netflix was appearing on the radar with a list of serious films by serious filmmakers--films that were being endorsed by critics, embraced by audiences, and encouraged by Academy votes as awards season drew near. Top-shelf filmmakers--like brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen--released their 2018 Netflix film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, both on the streaming service and (concurrently) in a limited number of theaters for a limited theatrical run. Alfonso Cuaron repeated this double-release formula with his heralded 2018 film, Roma, which aired on Netflix while also playing a limited release in theaters throughout the country. Roma was not only my pick for the best film of 2018, but it topped "Best Of" lists of many critics and filmgoers of last year.

[Aside: Of course, it was not meant to be. The Hollywood powers that be--older, established, and unwilling to see this new kid on the block, Netflix, as anything but an interloper in the world of the old Hollywood ways of doing business--decried the nominations of Cuaron's film (though it deserved all the praise it received, in my opinion) and, as we may all remember, bestowed its highest award of Best Picture of the Year to the safe, comfortable, PC film, Green Book, released by (...wait for it...) Universal Pictures. The fallout of it all, however is: Roma is a film that is a genuine work of art and will last (although snubbed by the establishment because of the name Netflix in its credits); Green Book, on the other hand is...well...does anyone even remember it, one year later? Hello? Is this thing on?...]

And by way of a third example of Netflix's presence in the film industry in 2018, one need look no further than Tamara Jenkins' beautiful, sad, funny, and achingly honest feature, Private Life. It was one of the best films of 2018, but as it turns out--for some inexplicable reason--it just sort of lingered in the shadows and stayed there. Though it would eventually receive the same double-release treatment as Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs--its brother and sister on Netflix--the cineplex release didn't happen immediately. And so, unfortunately and unfairly, Private Life failed to gain much notice when it came time, later in the year, for the major awards season. For whatever reason, Private Life did not get the attention it should have gotten--from the critics, from filmgoers, and even from yours truly.

[Aside: More on this topic below, in my lists, actually.]

Which brings us (finally) to this year's "Best Of" list of films, 2019. And a cursory glance at the studios that I've included for my picks will tell you immediately the lay of the land for the playing field these days. For example, the little studio, A24 (which has, over the past several years, been home to a number of high-quality, smaller, independent-style films) claims four films to its credit on my various lists below. The streaming service, Hulu, claims one. And the giant, Netflix, has emerged from the footlights this year to stand fully in the spotlight, center stage, with five of my favorite films of this year to its credit.

And it's not just me. One or two of these Netflix films are being embraced and lauded--nearly universally--as one or two of the finest films of the year. And with another awards season quickly approaching, the interloping new kid on the block may finally elbow its way this year all the way to the big stage, to claim what it deserves.

The old ways of Hollywood may be teetering on its pedestals. "The center cannot hold," T.S. Eliot warned. Statues may fall this year. (Or in the year to follow. Or the next year....) Or be pulled down.

The revolution is at hand. And these are interesting times to love the movies.

______________

LIST #3

Movies From 2019 I Still Haven't Seen Yet (To Date) That I'm Guessing Probably Would Have Made It Somewhere On My "End-of-Year Best-Of" List

(Had I Seen Them In Time)

1.) The Farewell -- (Director: Lulu Wang, Studio: A24)

Obviously--as the title of this list more than clearly spells out--I have not seen this film yet, although I want to. But from everything I've read about it, and from just the trailer alone, I can tell this is a fantastic film. And the emerging star of Awkwafina may be deservedly on the rise. Nominations are in order for her, from what I understand. And I hope that happens.


2.) A Hidden Life -- (Director: Terrence Malick, Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Love him as a philosophical film-poet, or dismiss him as a pretentious, bloated hack (and I am decidedly in the former camp), director Terrence Malick has made a handful of some of the finest modern American films that we have in the canon: Badlands (1973); Days of Heaven (1978); The Thin Red Line (1998); Tree of Life (2011). To put it simply, I would go see any film made by Malick. He is a treasure.


3.) The Lighthouse -- (Director: Robert Eggers, Studio: A24)

I admittedly don't know much about this film, other than that it stars Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson, and a seagull. I also know that the black-and-white cinematography by Jarin Blaschke is being praised. Oh...and the name Robert Eggers gets my attention, as well, as he helmed 2015's unsettlingly pleasant surprise, The Witch. Weirdness reigns amid the rocks and the waves, by all accounts. I can't wait.


4.) Little Women -- (Director: Greta Gerwig, Studio: Sony Pictures)

Former "mumblecore" leading lady and newly emerging director-par-excellence (her debut, 2017's Lady Bird, was the best movie of that year, in my opinion), Greta Gerwig is rising on the scene as a huge talent. Reuniting with her Lady Bird star, Saoirse Ronan, this new updating of Alcott's famous, beloved novel--in the hands of Gerwig--is getting some new life breathed into (c.a. the age of women's empowerment). It may be upsetting some devoted fans of the book, who view the written text as Gospel, clearly; but it seems the majority of audience members are pleased with this retelling. Two things are certain, regardless: Both Gerwig and Ronan have proven themselves great at their respective art. They work well together, too.


5.)  1917 -- (Director: Sam Mendes, Studio: Universal Pictures)

To date, this film hasn't even been released yet, but good Lord...the trailers. This thing looks good. This thing looks really good. And, supposedly, it has been filmed and cut to appear as if the entire film is all shot in one long take. Cinematic experimentalism on early-20th century battlefields, all in the capable hands of Sam Mendes. I look forward to seeing it.


6.) Uncut Gems -- (Directors: Josh Safdie and Bennie Safdie, Studio: A24)

I think I know even less about this film, really, than any of the others, except for the fact that it's getting some explosively good initial reviews--particularly Sandler's dramatic performance as a jeweler/gambler gone bad. Sandler has been on the skids, career-wise, for a while now. But I've always found him particularly interesting when he ventures into dramatic territory. His nervous, angsty, angry shtick works really well in the handful of dramas that he's been in. He's got the goods. I'd like to see this, if for no other reason than to watch Sandler's performance.

______________

LIST #2

2019 Honorable Mentions *

1.)  Catch-22 -- (Directors: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Ellen Kuras, Studio: Hulu)

So, my various lists here are going to start getting a little more interesting, with more of the entries reflecting some of the "revolutionary" aspects I alluded to above. And here is a perfect example to begin with: This year, the streaming service, Hulu, released a new 6-part adaptation of Joseph Heller's classic 1961 anti-war satire. Previously, the book had been interpreted for the big screen in 1970 by the young Broadway/Hollywood phenom-director, Mike Nichols, whose incredible one-two punch of 1966's classic film version of Edward Albee's, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was followed one year later by the classic anthem of disaffected youth, The Graduate. Nichols' Catch-22 is a fine film...but it's not great. It's certainly not without its problems. And the largest problem with it is that the bulk of Heller's book is either rewritten, reshaped, truncated, or trimmed away entirely to fit Paramount's carefully budgeted 2-hour time frame. And the problem with that is you can't honestly (not to mention accurately) tell Heller's story in a 2-hour movie. So this is where the magic of streaming services like Hulu can pick up the slack and present a long-form serialized motion picture--like this one. Does this movie work? Yes...for the most part. It is not perfect. It has some problems still. But it is at least the closest thing to Heller's original, intended tone and vision that we've been allowed to see so far on the screen--large or small. Does a film like this (serialized, not released in the cineplexes but instead only streamed on a subscription service at home) belong in any discussion of "End-of-Year-Best-Of" lists. To quote Dylan, here: "The times, they are a'changin'." And I think in 2019 the answer to that question has to be, unequivocally, "Yes."


2.) Private Life -- (Director: Tamara Jenkins, Studio: Netflix, 2018) *

Okay... I know. I know. I realize I'm not far into all this official listing business, and I've already cheated. I've already had to insert an asterisk. (I've already fucked things up; let's say it like it is.) But still... I feel compelled to include this film on my list of favorite movies that I watched this year--or at least an Honorable Mention, for God's sake--because even though it was released last year (literally, January, 2018), I did not get around to discovering this gem until this year, basically a year after its release. Let me be very honest: This is a wonderful movie; and had I been aware of it last year (I take total blame for this, for whatever reason), I would have included it on my list of favorite movies of 2018--alongside Netflix's Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (interestingly enough). But I didn't see it last year; I only saw it later--this year. And so, technically, it's one of the best movies I saw this year, 2019, even though it was released last year, and this little movie deserves an Honorable Mention mention, if nothing else. (And if that rationale sounds irrational and like I'm trying too hard to include a movie on a list simply because I want to include it, even though it doesn't belong and invalidates the whole notion of list-making...well...then, touche', I guess. I don't care: It's my list; I can do whatever the hell I want.)


3.) Rocketman -- (Director: Dexter Fletcher, Studio: Paramount Pictures)

I heard the question asked: "Did we really need another biopic about a gay British rockstar, following last year's hugely popular biopic on Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody?" Well, the answer this year was, "Sure. Why not?" Fletcher's take on the material, here, was interesting and came at me a little unexpected: I wasn't sure, at first, what everyone was doing during the opening musical numbers--singing and dancing, as if it were an old-fashioned movie musical. (Until the obvious occurred to me: That's exactly what was going on.) How clever to bring that approach to the life of Elton John and to the material of his songs. The movie worked.


4.) Tell Me Who I Am -- (Director: Ed Perkins, Studio: Netflix)

This movie took my breath away. I was not expecting this when I started it. I didn't cheat and go online beforehand to look up spoilers. I simply watched the trailer for this documentary film on Netflix, and I saw the critical praise the film had garnered, and I decided to hit PLAY. And I couldn't take my eyes off it. And afterwards, I had to watch it again. And then I couldn't stop thinking about it--the ethical dilemma and argument that resides at the core of this story. The real-life drama that unfolds as two twin brothers confront each other, across a table, after years of silence and separation, and get down to truths and revelations about their family... The greatest playwrights living would not be able to script a better work of fiction than this true story, told minimally and effectively. A very powerful nonfiction film from Netflix.


5.) Us -- (Director: Jordan Peele,  Studio: Universal Pictures)

While I thought that Jordan Peele's 2017 directorial debut, Get Out, was a good film--well made and entertaining--I honestly felt it was overrated, too. I didn't think it was a bad movie, but I didn't think it was as great as everyone else seemed to think it was. And so this year, when Peele's follow-up came out, Us, I figured it might be the same kind of thing: An entertaining and well-made film, but nothing great. But I was wrong. Us is a much better film than its predecessor, I feel. There is a lot going on here. And after seeing it at a local cineplex with my two older-teen daughters, the drive home that night after the show was given over to discussing, and dissecting, and debating what we had just seen. (Not a bad way to spend an evening with my daughters....)


6.) When They See Us -- (Director: Ava DuVernay, Studio: Netflix)

Another instance of a streaming service getting it right. When it comes to trying to tell an intricate story in a thorough, artistic, and emotionally satisfying way, this is how it's done. Like Hulu demonstrated earlier in the year with its long-form treatment of Catch-22, Netflix responded in kind with an amazingly powerful long-form telling of the infamous Central Park Five case of 1989. This movie hit audiences right in the gut, and it did not stop throughout the length of its four serialized chapters. It was a weakening experience watching this film. It  hurt, emotionally. It gripped you, and it didn't let go. When They See Us is a perfect argument, in fact, for why the revolution in the film industry is happening and should be happening. This is what streaming services can do better than the old-fashioned Hollywood/feature-film system. This is a beautiful movie that could not have been told any better any other way.

______________

LIST #1

My Top 10 Films of 2019 

10.) Booksmart -- (Director: Olivia Wilde, Studio: United Artists)



Like the second half of its title implies, the emphasis here is on "smart." The script of Booksmart is alive with intelligence and a caustic, raunchy, bold sense of humor. This is the kind of young-teen post-adolescence-on-the-cusp-of-adulthood sort of film that generally features young men in the leads. (American Graffiti. Diner. Superbad. I could go on...) In fact, it isn't too difficult to imagine a stereotypical film-pitch in some Hollywood producer's office, beginning, "Imagine Superbad. But with girls." And while that comparison is apt, and not really an insult, Booksmart is so much more than just "Superbad with girls." It is so much better than just that three-word encapsulation implies. At its heart, Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever form an inseparable pair of irrepressibly lovable loners--two misfit young women, best friends since the playground, celebrating their last night together, and their first night ever of planned debauchery, before graduating from high school and going their separate ways. No, it's not a particularly original conceit, and it's not meant to be. That's part of the joy of it, actually. The familiar journey that the two girls go on over the course of one long night is a classic set-up that we've seen played out before...yes... But never quite like this. And it's a delightful breath of fresh air. It's a little bit trashy. It's a little bit raunchy. It's funny. It's silly. It's honest. It's moving. I really enjoyed it.


 9.) Joker -- (Director: Todd Phillips, Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures)

This movie impressed me. Despite the fallout from negative criticism and controversies surrounding the movie's release (its purported careless disregard for on-screen violence; its supposed misrepresentation of mental illness; its accused pandering to cliches' and tropes from a handful of Martin Scorcese's early existential masterpieces), Phillips' film knocked my legs out from under me. It's a serious film that takes its subject matter, its genre, and its iconic anti-hero protagonist seriously. And Joaquin Phoenix's performance?... Well, this will be considered sacrilege by many avid contemporary filmgoers and film buffs, but for years now--since Christopher Nolan's 2008, The Dark Knight--Heath Ledger's mesmerizing performance of The Joker (his last role, as it turned out) has been considered the career-defining performance, the golden ring, the standard-bearer. In my opinion, though, Phoenix overshadows Ledger's performance. He outdoes him. This is jawdropping method-acting going on in this movie. Joaquin Phoenix deserves recognition for what he's done here.

 8.) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood -- (Director: Marielle Heller, Studio: Sony Pictures)



In the spirit of full disclosure: I was actually a little reluctant to go see this movie, at first. I was a big fan of Morgan Neville's 2018 documentary film, Won't You Be My Neighbor? In fact, that film appeared on my "Best Of" list last year. Similarly, Gavin Edwards' 2019 book, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mr. Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever, appeared on a recent list of mine, as I tallied some of my favorite reads of the past year. Let's face it: In an irony that even he could not have foreseen, it is "hip" these days to jump on the Mr. Rogers fan-bus. And I'm actually all-in on that. I get it. When I was sitting in the theater last year, watching Neville's documentary, I am not too proud to admit that, sitting there in the dark with a room full of strangers (as is the custom when venturing forth to watch a movie the old-fashioned way), I found myself crying more than once. A knot in the back of the throat. A tightening of air passages. Eyes filling with tears. And crying. More than once. And I wondered about that: Why? What about this man, Fred Rogers, has the power today to elicit--from a grown man, like myself--such emotions coming out of nowhere? Am I depressed? Am I sad? Is it the times that we live in--so disruptive, so divided, so acidic, so knee-jerk volatile, and so angry? Everything about this gentle, kind man represents the exact opposite of all of that, and I think Neville's 2018 documentary film--as does Heller's 2019 feature film, here-- captures the spirit and the soul of Fred Rogers so perfectly. He is an antidote for our times. He, and everything that he was and that he still represents, is what we are missing today, and maybe what we need. And, so, yes, I did go see Heller's movie (as I knew I would all along). And, yes, Tom Hanks is his usual brilliant self. But so much more than that, even, it's the film's script, and the rest of the cast, and the direction, and the art design, and the spirit of Fred Rogers running through every frame of the movie. It's all rather lovely and...well...beautiful.

 7.) Jojo Rabbit -- (Director: Taika Waititi, Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures)

I guess in a roundabout way you could say this movie is the best thing to come out of Disney's subsidiary, Marvel Studios, in all of 2019. [Aside: I'm not kidding.] For what do you do after making a truckload of money, directing 2017's Thor: Ragnarok? Well, for starters--if you're Taika Waititi--you take the helm of a little dream-project inspired by Christine Leunen's international bestselling novel, Caging Skies, which tells the story of a young boy, Johannes Betzler, a member of the Hitler Youth, growing up in Nazi-controlled Vienna during W.W.II as a lonely, sensitive, imaginative, and compassionate little boy who has, as his imaginary friend, none other than Adolf Hitler. [Aside: And it's right about here where I usually lose people when trying to explain the premise of this film.] How, you might ask, does Waititi take this outrageous (and possibly even offensive) concept and turn it into one of the brightest, funniest, deepest, saddest, liveliest, most run-out-of-the-theater-afterwards-and-tell-all-your-friends-to-go-see-it movies of the year? Well...he does it. Channeling the likes of auteur filmmaker, Wes Anderson, Waititi brings just the right touch to his material, letting this gentle little fable unfold to share its message of love and understanding and acceptance. And by the time we, along with little Jojo, discover the tough and tender Jewish girl that his mother is hiding in their house, there is no turning away from this film. It's extraordinary. Jojo Rabbit is one of the great surprises for me this year. A great little film.

 6.) Midsommar -- (Director: Ari Aster, Studio: A24)

More than any movie on my list (for whatever this may or may not say about me), Aster's movie lingered in the back of my mind long after I finished watching it--replaying scenes, images, and ideas over, and over, and over. This movie haunted me, disturbed me, intrigued me, fascinated me, and finally convinced me that it is, in fact, a great movie. Of course, as soon as a filmmaker/artist comes along and tries to do something startling and fresh, the negative appraisals and accusations are quick to surface, claiming that actually Midsommar was just a crude and easily apparent "lifting" of Robin Hardy's creepy 1973 cult-classic, Wicker Man. But that's not true. And it's selling both movies too short, I think. Yes, are there some motifs and tones and themes from Hardy's film that reappear in Aster's story? Of course. Such criticisms mean nothing to me, though, since they seem to act as if art (any art) exists in a vacuum somehow, oblivious to the inspirations and the influences of all the art that has come before. That's the way it has always worked--whether you want to call it inspiration or homage or "lifting. [Aside: Go back and read Professor Harold Bloom's seminal 1973 critical work, The Anxiety of Influence, if you want to understand how this works in literature, storytelling, etc. It's hardly anything new. In the meantime, give Aster his due: He is the real deal. He knows what he's doing, and what he's doing is something very interesting and exciting.] While 2018's Hereditary got attention and praise, my initial viewing told me that it was somehow overrated. After watching this year's Midsommar, however, I see that he's building on something. There are echoes within his work. He's really trying to do something as an artist; I look forward to seeing where he goes next. (I may have to turn my head on occasion, not wanting to see what he's showing me. But that's okay. I'll go along with him where he leads. I trust him.... I think.)

5.) Knives Out -- (Director: Rian Johnson, Studio: Lionsgate)

Wunderkind writer/director, Rian Johnson, had a rough 2017. After weathering the storm of online critical backlash from some overly zealous and unimaginative cult-like Star Wars "fans," Johnson--whose eighth chapter in that saga, the much unfairly maligned, The Last Jedi--decided to quickly regroup, circle the wagons, and raise a filmic middle-finger to all of his unappreciative naysayers. [Aside: For the record--and this is coming from an admitted lifelong Star Wars fan--I loved his contribution to the Star Wars canon. Johnson's 2017, The Last Jedi, is fresh, and daring, and fun. I think it's a very good movie, and I actually feel kind of bad for him, having to put up with so much whining and crying from supposed "fans" who supposedly didn't get what they supposedly wanted. But I digress....] His latest film, Knives Out--fresh on the heels of all the heaped abuse--is about as much fun as anything you were likely to see at the movies this past year. As he is seemingly wont to do, Johnson turns his attention to yet another genre and does his usual tinkering and deconstructing-reconstructing. And what you have, then, is a modernized Agatha Christie-style murder-mystery, the likes of which you've never quite seen. There is just enough post-modern edginess to keep the whole thing kind of hipsterish and cool, but it's mainly a blast from the past (not to mention a blast at his childish critics who don't seem to "get" him). Johnson is the real deal, though. This movie put a smile on my face for its whole running time. 

 4.) Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood -- (Director: Quentin Tarantino, Studio: Sony Pictures)

Like an old, champion prizefighter, Quentin Tarantino (with his ninth feature film credited to his resume',) still has the moves. And when he wants to, he can still come into the ring (and his "ring," here, is not so much a genre as it is a film-storytelling style that he very nearly created single-handedly back in the early-1990s), maybe a little older, maybe not quite as in-shape as he used to be, maybe a little slower, maybe a little more methodical in his game-plan. But when he decides to put it all together and to get into his new-found rhythm, like that metaphorical old boxer, Tarantino can still swing with the best of them and can still prove that he's the undisputed champ. Simply put: Nobody does what Quentin Tarantino does better than Quentin Tarantino. And he does it all again flawlessly, here. He has maybe faltered a time or two in his career. (His previous directorial outing, for example, 2015's The Hateful Eight, had all the usual pieces in place--it looked and sounded and felt like a Tarantino film--but, God help me, the movie felt like a mess and a bit of a slog to sit through.) With this outing, though, Tarantino again finds his stride. And as he does so often and so well, he is begging, borrowing, and stealing from every one of his cherished memories as a lifelong lover of the movies. His title, here--borrowed from Italian director, Sergio Leone, who enjoyed reusing the phrase for his own movies (Once Upon a Time in the West, and Once Upon a Time in America, et al.)--is a definitive nod to film geeks everywhere. But Tarantino's title serves another purpose, too. He's reminding us that he, just as he's always been, is in the business and the art of telling stories. And his story this time is about those who are also, like him, in the business and the art of telling stories. And like all the old, traditional stories that begin with the phrase, "Once upon a time..." and end with the closing coda, "...and they all lived happily ever after," Tarantino is going to deconstruct this narrative pattern in his usual premeditated, post-modern way. For in this film, as the title tells us, Tarantino sets the scene in Hollywood, a veritable land of make-believe, where anything can happen, and usually does. And in this particular story--as in all the great stories of old--truth is malleable. It can be reshaped and reformed to fit whatever fictional reality the storyteller wants. And we've seen him do this before, as a filmmaker. (I'm thinking particularly of 2009's great, Inglorious Basterds, where Tarantino had Adolf Hitler and the Nazis get their fitting comeuppance in a fiery blaze of ingloriousness.) Because in this world of make-believe, after all, anything can happen. Facts can be altered. History can be rewritten. Good people don't have to die senselessly and brutally at the hands of crazed, drugged-out followers of Charles Manson. The good guys can win, after all. And the dead don't have to die. They can be brought back to life. And they can, as the saying goes, all live happily ever after....

 3.) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker -- (Director: J.J. Abrams, Studio: Disney)

What is there left to say about Star Wars? For the past 42 years, I have followed along with these characters and this storyline (as admittedly clunky and convoluted as it has gotten at times) with the same devotion of that wide-eyed 10 year-old boy who first sat in his seat in a darkened movie-theater way back in May of 1977 and fell in love with George Lucas' imagined universe. Whether they are good movies or bad movies, whether they make sense or they don't make sense, whether they are deemed to be too slavishly devoted to the tried-and-true formula that has worked before or are deemed to be too daring, and different, and disrespectful of the audience's wants and needs, none of that talk matters to me. My rational mind as one who obviously likes to study film, analyze film, and "talk film" admittedly gets put on the shelf when it comes to something like Star Wars. I love it. And I always have. I don't care about all the incessant online chatter and banter. There's no end to it. There's no outcome that could make everyone happy. There is no way that Abrams' film could possibly be all things to all people. The film-saga's worldwide legion of fans is made up of many particular mindsets, and there is no way that this, the supposed final chapter in the Skywalker saga, was going to wrap everything up nice and neat for everyone, answering all questions, and resolving everything in a way that would satisfy all fans everywhere. That was an impossibility. But, all that being said, I think Abrams has done a rather remarkable and admirable job. I don't care about all the naysayers. I don't care about all the negative hype, all the cool, uber-ironic, hipsterish hate being dished out on something as "old" and "outdated" and "so totes '70s" as Star Wars. [Aside: "Okay boomer." Really? Give me a fucking break. And while you're at it, learn how to actually have a logical discussion and discourse. And take your airpods out of your ears, and get your phone out of your hands, and look me in the eyes, and speak intelligibly, and pull up your goddamned pants. THEN we can talk about your thoughts and opinions. Maybe.] Is this a perfect film? No. Does it have its share of flaws? Yes. Is it silly, and goofy, and irrational? Yes. (And in so saying, I have just neatly summarized every Star Wars film ever made.) But did I have a good time watching it? Yes. Did it thrill me, make me laugh, move me, and recapture for me that elusive sense of childlike wonder and fun that I first felt when I was that 10 year-old boy? Absolutely yes...to all of it. I got the lumps in the back of the throat. The tears stinging the eyes, on several occasions throughout. I had "all the feels" while watching The Rise of Skywalker, to be sure. Totes. The movie played me, just as surely as John Williams' familiar opening crash of chords played, once again, over the loud Surround Sound speakers in the cineplex. And I loved it. Abrams' film is a great ending to it all, I think. So there.

 2.) The Irishman -- (Director: Martin Scorcese, Studio: Netflix)

Recently, I revisited the Art Institute of Chicago, strolling through its familiar marbled halls. My favorite area of the museum would have to be its Impressionism wing. And some of the artists I am always most drawn to are deservedly famous names of 19th century (usually French or Dutch) Impressionism--artists such as Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh, and Claude Monet. Particularly with the museum's rather comprehensive collection of Monet's paintings--his various series of the Houses of Parliament, shimmering in a gauzy haze across the Thames; his ponds; his lily-pads; his gardens; his haystacks--it is surprisingly thrilling to slowly walk along, looking at each of his canvases, so many times the same subject, the same view, a similar composition, a similar take on what (at just a casual, passing glance) appears to be the same painting painted over and over and over. But of course to a careful eye you see what Monet was really trying to do with his repetition, with his repainted scenes of haystacks--some of them in the bright sunlight and blue sky, some of them at dusk with a pink and violet tinge, some of them capped with snow, some of them bare in the broiling summer sun. Monet was not out of ideas; he was simply exploring the theme of the passage of time on his chosen set of beloved subjects. He observed the changing seasons. He observed how the seconds, minutes, and hours moved. The way the light changes. The way shadows appear and stretch themselves across the ground. The same subject--looked at from different angles, at different times, and in different ways--could appear as a different subject every time.This is what the great artists do. And this is what Martin Scorcese has done--one more time--with his latest film, The Irishman, the "inspired-by-true-events" life story of a life in the mob; told as only he can tell it; told as he has told it many times before...but different. Studying the light. Studying the change of seasons. Studying the passage of time. It almost seems beside the point to say that the cast for this thing is impeccable. Once again, he is joined by his two favorite muses, the actors Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. Between just Scorcese and De Niro, alone, the two of them have created some of the greatest film-art of our time: Mean Streets; Taxi Driver; Raging Bull; Goodfellas.... Do I need to go on? When Pesci joined them in 1980 for Raging Bull, what Scorcese managed to tap into--an improvisational feel of the on-screen relationship between his two actors--is the kind of gold that you can really only be lucky at striking once. But then the three of them struck it again together in 1990's Goodfellas. And then again, five years later, in Casino. And now, fast-forward 24 years, to 2019's The Irishman. [Aside: And to think that I haven't even mentioned Al Pacino's name yet, playing (to the hilt) Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa. This should tell you what kind of movie this is when I "bury the lead" like that, finally getting around to mentioning an actor of Pacino's caliber with just a few sentences left of my review. This thing is a work of art, after all.] The feeling I had while watching this late-career masterpiece from Scorcese (another Netflix production, by the way), was that I was watching a genuine artist at work--a group of them, actually, comfortable with one another, familiar with one another, familiar with this story, and these characters, and this subject. But it's not, finally, about the repetition of the subject. It's about the changing of the seasons. And the passage of time. And the way the light moves.

 1.) Marriage Story -- (Director: Noah Baumbach, Studio: Netflix)

Which brings me, at long last, to my pick for what I think, finally, is the best movie of 2019. Yet another Netflix production from this past year, this movie is undeniably incredible. It left me speechless when I watched it. And I don't even really want to talk about it here, strangely enough (particularly after I have devoted so much time and space to doing nothing but talking about film, ad nauseum, perhaps). I simply want people to watch this movie. Whatever way you can--whether that is through streaming, on Netflix, in the comfort of your home, or in the movie-theater, at your local cineplex, Whatever. Just find it, and watch it. And maybe you're single. And maybe you're dating or in a relationship with a significant other. And maybe you're married--maybe only just recently married or maybe getting ready to celebrate 30+ years together. And maybe you're divorced. I don't know. I don't want to say that someone who isn't married couldn't understand, or appreciate, or like this film; just as I don't want to say that someone who has never gone through the agonies of divorce couldn't understand, or appreciate, or like this film. But...if you are married, you will certainly "get" this movie in particular ways, as opposed to someone watching it who has never been married. Similarly, if you are divorced, you will most definitely experience the depths of this film in a way that a viewer who is not divorced will not be able to fully understand. That's just the way it is. As someone who has experienced both marriage and divorce, I can say only this: In all my years of watching film and of loving movies, I cannot recall a more devastatingly honest depiction of it all. What Baumbach has accomplished here, with the acting chops of his two leads, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver (both of whom have never been better on film and who both, deservedly, are being talked about for awards this year), is nothing short of amazing. It's so good, and so powerful, and so affecting, and funny, and sad, and moving, and ultimately hopeful (I think), that all I want to do is encourage you to watch it. During these revolutionary times of ours, do it now. On Netflix. Or in the cineplex. Take your pick.