Every Day Above Ground (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mallorys_camera) wrote2025-04-27 10:03 am
mallorys_camera) wrote2025-04-27 10:03 am
Entry tags:
White Rabbit
Life has been boring placid, so there isn't really very much to talk about with my kids on the phone except television.
I watch a lot of television because these days, I'm too braindead to read in that hour or so before I fall asleep.
"So, White Lotus," I said to Ichabod on the phone. "I'm watching Season 2. Because Sicily."
"Do you like it?"
"I neither like it nor dislike it," I said. "It's like the fondant of the streaming video world. Very sugary. Slightly chewy. High production values. Ultimately bland. There was this one scene, though—"
Four of the protagonists visit the village where The Godfather was filmed. It's a tourist spot now, the car explosion that killed Apollonia—in my youth, I was constantly being told, You look like her!—on perpetual, grainy, cheap-VCR loop. The display is very brown.
The young female protagonist grimaces. "So violent!"
The 80-year-old protagonist says, "It's the greatest film ever made! Have you seen it?"
The young female protagonist says she's seen part of it.
Then there's an argument about whether the reason The Godfather is so beloved is because it so perfectly encapsulates the fantasy life of the patriarchy.
But this doesn't interest me.
No, what interests me is the fact that apparently there are people on the planet who haven't seen The Godfather!!!!
"I mean, do Millennials really think The Godfather is about the patriarchy? Do you really not love The Godfather?"
Ichabod snorted. "Of course, we don't. Why would we?"
###
Ah, the evanescence of cultural touchstones.
I remember about five years ago, I was driving a delightful young woman called Adrienne somewhere. Adrienne was around Ichabod's age. White Rabbit came on the radio.
Doing favors is a quid pro quo process. Adrienne gets to be delivered to a place she'd otherwise have difficulty getting to since she doesn't have a car; I get a captive audience for my insightful ramblings about the cultural significance of White Rabbit.
"Wait. What's White Rabbit?" Adrienne asked.
"This song. You've never heard of it before?"
"No-o-oo-o—"
How could Adrienne never have heard of White Rabbit before? It was practically the anthem of my entire generation!
I'd answered my own question, I realized.
###
"You know the first time I heard White Rabbit?" Ichabod asked. "It was part of the soundtrack for Jim Carrey movie called The Cable Guy. About this really sleazy, pathetic Boomer guy."
I sighed. "Yeah. I know these cultural touchstones are a kind of horizontal glue. They have no vertical reach. They're a kind of glitter on the present tense. A delusion of significance. Maya. Still. They seem to cast such a long shadow that when you find out they don't, you're left wondering: Does anything cast a long shadow?"
Ichabod was 3,200 miles away, driving from Monterey back to Santa Cruz—we generally speak on the phone when he is driving—so I had to imagine his shrug. "Define 'long.' Define 'shadow. Everything casts a long shadow. Or conversely, nothing does. You get to decide for yourself."
"You know what's crazy?" I asked. "When I was a kid, the 1920s seemed like the ancient past to me, an inconceivably long-ago time. But it was only really less than 25 years before I was born. The 1990s are longer ago to me now than the 1920s were then."
"That's really trippy when you start thinking about it," said Ichabod. "We're all such imperfect time travelers."
###
In other news: It rained heavily all day yesterday and I remained incredibly pissed off at myself that I can't just dash off 8,000 words in a single sitting but am forced to stretch the task over six days because I—Well. Just can't.
"Seems like there should be some drug I could take," I told Ichabod. "That's really what's wrong with the world today. There are no more good drugs!"
It was the day the Vision-of-Wallkill hamlet-wide yard sale was supposed to take place, but naturally the weather put a crimp in those plans.
I went out to the Lions Club pavillion by the river anyway because the Women's Club had set up a bunch of tables under the leaky rafters.
Mucho creepy stuff for sale:
I guess yard sales will be the new Dollar Tree now that we have always been at war with Eastasia.
In the parking lot, I saw this disturbing vehicle drive up:
It disgorged a male with long, straggling white hair and menacing mien and what I assume was his old lady, weatherbeaten but better preserved than he was.
Gotta say, I was a bit flabbergasted by the truck. I mean, really, you hate Biden enough to get (presumably) costly detailing on your ride? 'Cause you sure don't look like you got much spare bank! Plus, there's still some small part of me that still uses the complex signaling system of my youth when long hair meant "my side."
But signals ultimately are all just random noise.
And White Rabbit is just another version of Glen Miller's Stardust.
I keep thinking there must be something real, but it's hard to get a fix on exactly what that something could be.
I watch a lot of television because these days, I'm too braindead to read in that hour or so before I fall asleep.
"So, White Lotus," I said to Ichabod on the phone. "I'm watching Season 2. Because Sicily."
"Do you like it?"
"I neither like it nor dislike it," I said. "It's like the fondant of the streaming video world. Very sugary. Slightly chewy. High production values. Ultimately bland. There was this one scene, though—"
Four of the protagonists visit the village where The Godfather was filmed. It's a tourist spot now, the car explosion that killed Apollonia—in my youth, I was constantly being told, You look like her!—on perpetual, grainy, cheap-VCR loop. The display is very brown.
The young female protagonist grimaces. "So violent!"
The 80-year-old protagonist says, "It's the greatest film ever made! Have you seen it?"
The young female protagonist says she's seen part of it.
Then there's an argument about whether the reason The Godfather is so beloved is because it so perfectly encapsulates the fantasy life of the patriarchy.
But this doesn't interest me.
No, what interests me is the fact that apparently there are people on the planet who haven't seen The Godfather!!!!
"I mean, do Millennials really think The Godfather is about the patriarchy? Do you really not love The Godfather?"
Ichabod snorted. "Of course, we don't. Why would we?"
###
Ah, the evanescence of cultural touchstones.
I remember about five years ago, I was driving a delightful young woman called Adrienne somewhere. Adrienne was around Ichabod's age. White Rabbit came on the radio.
Doing favors is a quid pro quo process. Adrienne gets to be delivered to a place she'd otherwise have difficulty getting to since she doesn't have a car; I get a captive audience for my insightful ramblings about the cultural significance of White Rabbit.
"Wait. What's White Rabbit?" Adrienne asked.
"This song. You've never heard of it before?"
"No-o-oo-o—"
How could Adrienne never have heard of White Rabbit before? It was practically the anthem of my entire generation!
I'd answered my own question, I realized.
###
"You know the first time I heard White Rabbit?" Ichabod asked. "It was part of the soundtrack for Jim Carrey movie called The Cable Guy. About this really sleazy, pathetic Boomer guy."
I sighed. "Yeah. I know these cultural touchstones are a kind of horizontal glue. They have no vertical reach. They're a kind of glitter on the present tense. A delusion of significance. Maya. Still. They seem to cast such a long shadow that when you find out they don't, you're left wondering: Does anything cast a long shadow?"
Ichabod was 3,200 miles away, driving from Monterey back to Santa Cruz—we generally speak on the phone when he is driving—so I had to imagine his shrug. "Define 'long.' Define 'shadow. Everything casts a long shadow. Or conversely, nothing does. You get to decide for yourself."
"You know what's crazy?" I asked. "When I was a kid, the 1920s seemed like the ancient past to me, an inconceivably long-ago time. But it was only really less than 25 years before I was born. The 1990s are longer ago to me now than the 1920s were then."
"That's really trippy when you start thinking about it," said Ichabod. "We're all such imperfect time travelers."
###
In other news: It rained heavily all day yesterday and I remained incredibly pissed off at myself that I can't just dash off 8,000 words in a single sitting but am forced to stretch the task over six days because I—Well. Just can't.
"Seems like there should be some drug I could take," I told Ichabod. "That's really what's wrong with the world today. There are no more good drugs!"
It was the day the Vision-of-Wallkill hamlet-wide yard sale was supposed to take place, but naturally the weather put a crimp in those plans.
I went out to the Lions Club pavillion by the river anyway because the Women's Club had set up a bunch of tables under the leaky rafters.
Mucho creepy stuff for sale:
I guess yard sales will be the new Dollar Tree now that we have always been at war with Eastasia.
In the parking lot, I saw this disturbing vehicle drive up:
It disgorged a male with long, straggling white hair and menacing mien and what I assume was his old lady, weatherbeaten but better preserved than he was.
Gotta say, I was a bit flabbergasted by the truck. I mean, really, you hate Biden enough to get (presumably) costly detailing on your ride? 'Cause you sure don't look like you got much spare bank! Plus, there's still some small part of me that still uses the complex signaling system of my youth when long hair meant "my side."
But signals ultimately are all just random noise.
And White Rabbit is just another version of Glen Miller's Stardust.
I keep thinking there must be something real, but it's hard to get a fix on exactly what that something could be.
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I'm one episode away from finishing Season 3 of The White Lotus!!! I'm utterly fascinated by how this soap opera has completely captivated me! I think its GREAT. The dialogue, the arcs, the revelation of ordinary lives in beautiful locales. The pettiness that enwebs us. I don't think S2 was as strong because it's theme really was sexuality and that's boring these days, but S1 and S3 are top notch for many reasons!
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Yeah, well like I say, I started with Season 2 because Sicily. 😀
I don't not like it!
And maybe I'll actually like Seasons 1 & 3. 😀
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Strawberry fields
Re: Strawberry fields
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Count me among them. The reason I have never watched The Godfather, even though I lurv Al Pacino, is that I have a deep dislike of mafia films*. And recently I discovered that it's not just mafia, but any criminal families, especially if they are fighting each other.
That is why I never watched Peaky Blinders, gave up on the second season of Fargo and was very disappointed in the second season of The Tourist.
*Only exception is Analyze This, but that is because it's a comedy.
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I get it. I couldn't watch Breaking Bad or Orange Is the New Black because I hate methamphetamine (real or fictional) and I don't do prison movies.
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I've never seen The Godfather, but I like the song "White Rabbit"
That truck... Biden is rear window now, guy! Car detailing like that is like a tattoo. Guy's now caught permanently with a sentiment that's no longer relevant.
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They had the letters T-R-U-M-P on the back fender in duct tape, which is, of course, easy to remove. So, the meta-message was, We hate Biden more than we love Trump, which made no sense whatsoever to me.
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I mean in a way I'm glad: it's better than putting it on some group of vulnerable people, because if they do the latter, they might end up nerving themself up to hurt someone, whereas sticking it on Biden is unlikely (hmmm, though not impossible, I guess) to hurt Biden.
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Today’s teenagers will never know the enchantment of watching Romeo + Juliet (Leonardo DiCaprio + Claire Danes) from my teenage years, even if they watch it now. It’s hard to recreate what something meant in a particular part of time.
I was reading about the stage musical Mame, a former Broadway smash hit, and how it was based on a bestselling novel in the 1950s. We could read the book again now, yet it’s hard to understand what it meant to people then.
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But I get why people don't like it.
You watched Leonardo DiCaprio & Claire Danes; I watched Olivia Hussey & Whatshisname. 😀 Today's teenagers will get their own Romeo & Juliet.
I actually read Patrick Dennis's novel Auntie Mame when I was 10 or so.
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FWIW, when I saw The Godfather when it first came out what stuck with me most was the scene at the toll booth when Sonny is murdered because I recognized the setting as a place I used to ride my bike to.
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Good question! Today's youth basically doesn't read, so unless Nineteen eighty four is still part of the high school curriculum, I'd guess No. 😀
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