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02/23/09 - (1)
In the Darkness
He appreciates his workweeks only for what they portend: The end of his boredom and drudgery And the onset of his two-day movie marathons, His fervent escapes, from his impoverished spirit's disappointments, Into the magnified dimension of on-screen verisimilitude.
In the past month, he's been to no fewer than thirteen shows (Seen two of them twice, one three times), Usually on reduced-rate early Saturdays and Sundays, When almost no other viewers seek out his haunts. No question, he's more at home in the theaters than at home.
Curiously, when last evening's Academy Awards were airing, He was sleeping, warmly tucked in, between the sheets, Dreaming scenes from movies spanning the past seven decades: The Bank Dick, Citizen Kane, Giant, The Godfather, The Reader. He hasn't the slightest interest in Hollywood hype, glitz.
For him, all that's ever mattered is the billboard-size screen, The grit, the fantasy, the violence, the courage, the love, the lust — All the dynamic chemistry of human doing Seeking its greatness and degradation, grandeur and corruption — Within a rectangle he can fold up and place in memory's vault,
Take with him, when he leaves the theater, drives off the parking lot, Into the fluid ambiguities of the reality that buoys him, turbulently, On its sea of constantly swirling uncertainties, Those scrim curtains that shadow him, Monday through Friday, When he spends all his hours doing battle with his puny existence. At least the movies are immutable, infinite in their finiteness. They never change their minds, break their promises, Upend his hopes, suspend his willing suspension of disbelief. Their foes, demons, heroes, lovers are old friends, family. In the darkness, the world makes sense.
02/23/09 - (1)
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