\t\t\t\toverheard last week:<\/p>\n
2 guys talking.
\n“Do you remember Hitler?”
\n“Who?”
\n“You know, World War II?”
\n“Oh, yeah, I remember him. Cool guy.”<\/p>\n
not that i want to know, but i wonder where that conversation went next.<\/p>\n
i watched “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” the other night, a nazi-era
\nfilm of fantasy, though i was sold throughout on it at least being based
\non a true story, a sliver of a story from WWII. i was a bit bummed to find
\nthat it had no basis in fact, and at that i commenced to question
\neverything about the leaps of logic within the narrative.<\/p>\n
i have also been watching some episodes of M*A*S*H, a fixture in my
\ntelevision throughout youth, episodes which look a little different but
\ncomfortably the same as i remember them. i do not see anything
\nfundamentally different in those shows now versus when i saw thim in
\nschool — this unlike the surprisingly sophisticated humour in childhood
\nshows like Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, humour which rose anew when
\nre-encountered as an adult.<\/p>\n
i also have been rambling through my still born collection of “The
\nComplete Peanuts,” a monstrous set of books which has a publishing
\nschedule that caused me to see the plateau, that horizon of mortality
\nwhence one can assume they will not live long enough to see the fruits of
\nthe labor.<\/p>\n
i had no fear of my own imminent death, but when these volumes were
\npublished more-or-less annually i began scheduling them as Christmas or
\nbirthday gifts for my mother, this annual gift-giving routine clouded by
\nher mortality, and the presumption that there was no way she could live
\nlong enough to see this series published to its completion.<\/p>\n
she did not, and possibly as a corrolary to this i ceased my own
\ncollection, but i decided last week to resume the accumulation, this after
\nopening a couple of volumes from the late 1950s and finding them (mostly)
\nas funny as ever, to me at least.<\/p>\n
i think of Charles Schulz once in a while, in tandem with a friend of mine
\nwho was a composer and pianist. when i mentioned Charles Schulz to a
\nfriend in the months after Schulz’s death the friend grimaced, a
\ndemonstrative frown of the :[ shape, complaining that Schulz wandered off
\ninto irrelevance during the 1970s. not so much complaining as relegating,
\ndismissing, throwing away. Charles Schulz? Pppht, a waste of greatness.<\/p>\n
An annoying and senselessly cynical dismissal, by my account, but common
\namong failures.<\/p>\n
In another instance, though, I mentioned the name of a deceased friend who
\nhad been a composer and pianist of note. He was also an alcoholic and
\nrecreation drug user whose productivity was absorbed into vodka and
\nheroin, but whose name survives in history books and on LP records.<\/p>\n
i mentioned his name to a friend and the reaction was the same: squint.
\ngrimace. frown. disappointment. “yeah, it’s too bad, isn’t it?” that was
\nnot the reaction i might have expected, had i established expectations for
\nthe conversation. i expected a stroke of positive memory, a hearty, if
\nhoary, reminiscence. something positive at the mention of a mutual
\ncolleague’s death.<\/p>\n
instead the reflex was to remember the failure, remember the worst,
\nremember the addiction and the waste and to forget the accomplishment and
\nthe success.<\/p>\n
thus trail human sentiments, i guess. i do not understand why we boo the
\ndead. i have said this before and i will say it again until it trickles
\ninto the general discussion: why do we applaud when presented with
\nsomeone who is 102 years old? “MEET MABLE, SHE’S 102!” (applause from the
\naudience). why? why applause? reaching those triple-digit ages (craaaazy
\nby today’s standards but common to the future) is a matter of luck and
\nlaziness, but it does not merit applause. to my ears the act of applauding
\nthe unbelievably elderly is no different from going out to the cemetery
\nand booing the dead. “LOSERS! YOU 42-YEAR-OLDS COULDN’T CUT IT, COULD
\nYOU? YOU 90 YEAR OLDS GOT NOTHING ON MABLE! F0CK Y00000000000!!!
\nBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
overheard last week: 2 guys talking. “Do you remember Hitler?” “Who?” “You know, World War II?” “Oh, yeah, I remember him. Cool guy.” not that i want to know, but i wonder where that conversation went next. i watched “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” the other night, a nazi-era film of fantasy, though i […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-t8","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}