Very funny. Not only is the subtext of the speech keenly apposite, but so is the crasser physical comparison between McCain and The Penguin.
One thing. I was floored there by a mild Alzheimeresque episode, when I realised I can no longer remember the name of the actor. I do remember he was excellent in an a very early version of Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" - the one where he sits down myopically on the library steps to get a handle on all those classics he's missed out on reading, and inadvertently sends his spectacles crashing onto the sidewalk.
Ib, what a guy you are! God only knows what kind of short circuiting damaged synapses connected to summon up this memory, but I believe that was Burgess Meredith. Pause. Damn, a visit to Wikipedia confirms it. Yes, as a nerdy child whose greatest joys were huddling under the covers, listening to the WMCA good guys on my transistor radio and reading with a flash light, I loved that episode of the Twilight Zone. If only all of those mean grownups would just go away, I could finally settle down and do some real reading.
Jesus! Thanks, Jon. It WAS Burgess Meredith. That episode was brilliant; the writing, the acting - everything. They don't make tv shows like that anymore, more's the pity.
I used to bunk off school when there was nobody else home and spend all day in bed reading. Then get dressed and come back in as though from a hard day's classwork. This was before I discovered booze, of course.
Yes, booze gave my young life meaning and purpose, for a while. I still have, somewhere in a box, one of my last attempts to keep a teenage journal. Those old journals aren't that interesting. I had already figured out that life is like prison and you shouldn't give up anything about yourself, especially not to yourself. It gets worse as my writing turns to a scrawl and ends with "too drunk to do this."
That certainly reverberates. I don't remember now if the full realisation that life is a damn prison sank in before or after my first encounter with the DTs. It knocked me for six, certainly, but I still had clarity; even if the projected movie seemed to be shot in soft focus a lot of the time, with little depth of field.
5 comments:
Very funny. Not only is the subtext of the speech keenly apposite, but so is the crasser physical comparison between McCain and The Penguin.
One thing. I was floored there by a mild Alzheimeresque episode, when I realised I can no longer remember the name of the actor. I do remember he was excellent in an a very early version of Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" - the one where he sits down myopically on the library steps to get a handle on all those classics he's missed out on reading, and inadvertently sends his spectacles crashing onto the sidewalk.
Damn. I hate it when my memory fails me.
Ib, what a guy you are! God only knows what kind of short circuiting damaged synapses connected to summon up this memory, but I believe that was Burgess Meredith. Pause. Damn, a visit to Wikipedia confirms it. Yes, as a nerdy child whose greatest joys were huddling under the covers, listening to the WMCA good guys on my transistor radio and reading with a flash light, I loved that episode of the Twilight Zone. If only all of those mean grownups would just go away, I could finally settle down and do some real reading.
Jesus! Thanks, Jon. It WAS Burgess Meredith. That episode was brilliant; the writing, the acting - everything. They don't make tv shows like that anymore, more's the pity.
I used to bunk off school when there was nobody else home and spend all day in bed reading. Then get dressed and come back in as though from a hard day's classwork. This was before I discovered booze, of course.
Yes, booze gave my young life meaning and purpose, for a while. I still have, somewhere in a box, one of my last attempts to keep a teenage journal. Those old journals aren't that interesting. I had already figured out that life is like prison and you shouldn't give up anything about yourself, especially not to yourself. It gets worse as my writing turns to a scrawl and ends with "too drunk to do this."
That certainly reverberates. I don't remember now if the full realisation that life is a damn prison sank in before or after my first encounter with the DTs. It knocked me for six, certainly, but I still had clarity; even if the projected movie seemed to be shot in soft focus a lot of the time, with little depth of field.
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