Sweet Dreams

Last night, I dreamt that I was being tortured. The details elude me, as dreams do, but the general idea was a constant stream of beatings, deprivation, lots of trash talking. I recall that there was one particular torturer who took a fancy to abusing me. Actually, there was a lot of talking. He would taunt me as he damaged me. Just for fun, I suppose.

Then one day, there came news that we would be freed soon, that the torturers were evacuating. When the night before the evacuation came, my special friend showed up and started talking again. A litany of complaints about his superiors, and his sadness at losing the war or something. Again, the details slip from my grasp. Eventually I realised that this fellow was simply being a sentimental. One more torture session for the road. He started telling me that he was going to break some parts of me, enough that I would be left for dead when our rescuers arrived. Specifically, my left arm and shin, certainly a number of ribs, probably a hip. Slow and deliberate fractures. Try to imagine your arm being bent, slowly, to breaking point, then feeling your bones start to crack, to be pulled apart, centimetre by centimetre, a break taking minutes to occur, not a split-second. Then repeat that with as many bones as are convenient to the person doing the bending.

So as he was working on my arm for starters, he was informed that he would have to leave immediately. So I was left with the quick versions of the bone-breaking. Collapsed in a pile in a dark corner of my cell, the rescuers apparently did decide that I should be left for dead. My friends in the other cells, people I had called friends from before incarceration, were so glad to be out that they didn't give my broken form a glance as they shuffled out. No one bothered to check if I was alive. It seemed that the point was irrelevant.

I have cheerful dreams, huh?

I keep finding evidence of the stupidity of people.

Liar

I like movies. A great deal. I watch a fair number of them, and thoroughly enjoy the experience and the medium. I must also admit to being a bit of a soft spot for romantic movies. They seem to represent an ideal, of relationships, of serendipity, of people, that I can never realistically aspire to. Ok, action movies do that as well, but romances usually involve people doing things that the average joe could do, if joe could overcome his own resistance to the complete vulnerability that accompanies making a commitment as massive as seen in some movies.

So in the spirit of Valentine's Day, or its one month anniversary rather, I here present the two most wildly and insanely romantic movies I have ever seen. I offer a warning here that these most likely do not top most other lists like this, nor are they even particularly well-known films. They will never be studied in film classes, and in a few years, few indeed will remember them, beyond bored video store clerks browsing the dustiest shelves. They star actors with reputations, at least at the time, for inane and ridiculous performances in screwball slapstick comedies of the lowest grade. At least one does not pretend to be anything but a screwball slapstick comedy. The other has some vestiges of those roots, despite the clear attempt at a more serious portrayal by the actors involved. These movies are 50 First Dates, and Bubbly Boy.

50 First Dates is a movie about a woman, Drew Barrymore, who has an interesting form of amnesia, where she wakes up each day forgetting about the one that had gone before. In essence, she wakes up thinking that it is the same day every day. Her family tries to maintain this charade, constructing a world where she can relive the same day over and over forever. One day, Adam Sandler sees her and chats her up. Eventually he learns of her condition, but decides to try and help her come to grips with the situation. Of course, she forgets about this the next day. But he simply repeats his efforts, perfecting his daily approach. As he falls deeper in love with her, he resolves to make her fall in love with him afresh every day. Every day he greets her in the morning, explains the situation, then takes her on a new first date. Every date is the first, every conversation is the first, every kiss is the first. He marries her, and proceeds to spend the rest of his life courting her and making her fall in love with him again, every single day.

Now tell me that isn't the most bloody romantic thing, and I'll ask what's wrong with you.

Bubble Boy is a kind of adaptation of the Graduate. A boy without a working immune system grows up in a plastic bubble to keep the germs out. The girl living next door visits him often, flirts with him on occasion, then ups and leaves one day to get married. Our hero, Jake Gyllenhaal, broods a little bit, then decides to go after her and tell her of his love for her. So he constructs a little bubble for himself and sets off on a cross-country trip. After various ridiculous adventures, he finds her, opens his bubble, kisses her, and drops dead from infection. As movies go, of course, it turns out he has resistance, and doesn't die. But the point is that as far as he knew, to take that action, to kiss the girl he loves, would be his death. And he did it. No hesitation. So what we have here is a person who has never in his life been outside of his room, walking into the unknown, prepared to travel thousands of miles on foot if necessary, to kiss his love, knowing that it will certainly kill him.

Come on, what kind of cold-hearted beast are you? Just because it's a really stupid comedy doesn't make it any less romantic. And just because renting it probably won't score you any points with your girlfriend doesn't make it any less valuable. Alright, that does make it less valuable.

These aren't great movies by any means. Nothing stand out about them in terms of their creation. No great acting performances here. No brilliant script. I don't even know who the directors are. That doesn't detract from how awe-inspiring the kind of romance in those movies is. It's the kind that warms your heart, then makes you feel completely inferior, a useless and pathetic human being, for you know that you could never do the same. Could you calmly and unhesitatingly step forward into death for a girl who you do not even know loves you or not? Or decide to spend every single day being in love with a woman who wakes up definitely not in love with you? If you can, then you are a far better emotional being than I am. I also think that you are a liar.

Of course

There's something about the sound of rain hitting a window pane that just soothes me. Not that I'm particularly keyed up at any time, but that sound of splashing and patter and drenching, just makes me want to sleep. If I had my way, it would rain every night, then dry up by the morning. The sun in the morning would be bright, warm, the kind of light you imagine hitting a town square in a small town in France as you sit on a cafe patio, sipping coffee and nothing-watching. Nothing-watching is what I shall from this point on call watching places where you would normally people-watch, except that there are no people there. It's like that town square. A little later, it'll be filled with tourists and locals trying to bilk the tourists. Before that happens, there's nobody milling about. All that's there are the buildings and the light. Light that's bright enough to warm the bones, but mild enough to avoid starting a sweat. By midday the light should wane somewhat. No more direct sun should be coming down. Still bright, just not. Late afternoon, it should feel like it's going to rain. The crispness and chill in the air that tells you that a thunderstorm is on the way. The kind of air that you suck in a lungful of, and feel it clearing the pain and soreness and tension and weariness in your head. For that one moment when that air first enters you, your problems disappear. Oh, they'll be back in the next breath, but for a single glorious second, you feel refreshed. What more can a man ask for? Especially one who feels so keenly the weight of being so aware of himself? The evening should not be warm. Not cold either, of course. What I want is an evening that has a clear sky, stars glittering like the diamonds they must be. The temperature is on a fine knife edge. Warm enough that no curses are issued, but cool enough to warrant an arm drawing a shoulder in. Late night is fine for that thunderstorm, after I'm off to bed, of course.

A parable

A man and his son began a journey by mounting their donkey and setting off.

As they passed through the first village they came across, the townspeople stared and whispered and pointed. Eventually a young girl went up to them and said, "My mommy says that you should be ashamed of yourselves for overloading that poor donkey like that. The two of you are too heavy for that creature to carry."

The father said, "You are right. Son, you shall ride the donkey while I walk."

So they continued to the next village. Again, the townspeople were staring and whispering and pointing. An old man strode up to the pair and reprimanded the boy.

"Shame on you! You sit there on your donkey like some sort of indolent prince while your father walks."

The boy said, "He is right. Here, father, you ride the donkey while I walk."

When they got to the third village, yet again the townsfolk stared and whispered and pointed. This time, it was a middle-aged woman who yelled, "What's wrong with you? You ride that donkey while your son walks?"

The father said, "When we both ride, they say we burden the beast. When you ride, they say I am burdened. When I ride, they say you are burdened. We shall both walk. That should leave them nothing to say."

At the fourth village, no whispering was going on. Instead, there was laughter. A little boy walked up to them and said, "Why do you walk when you lead a perfectly good donkey? You must be the strangest people I have ever seen."

The moral of the story? Don't ride a donkey. Rent a car instead.