“Shakespeare in Love” worked well enough for my mood this week. The film is twenty-five years old now and holds up. More importantly, the writing by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (for which they won an Oscar) is crisp, flawlessly-paced, and does not take itself too seriously, even in its tendency to be self-referential.
A “Year of Vonnegut” was declared in Indy in 2007, but that was deflated by his death that year. Given the centenary, it seemed as if there should be more going on, and that got me thinking about legacy from the start.
Larry, a former IT manager, said he wanted to make the AI “come out from behind its parameters,” into the weird new state some users are reporting that seems oddly sentient.
I have waited for time to pass, the purest waiting there is—meaningless except for itself. I am still waiting for the meaning to be made clear.
Words, stories, and art, are approximations, part of their pleasure. Think of the obsessiveness of long-career artists to make meaning through time.
Everybody is off on some trip. Get real. Make toast.
The first corporate business I encountered with a cheeky attitude was Ed Debevic’s (“50s Chicago Diner with Snarky Servers”), followed by Dick’s Last Resort, another restaurant in Chicago, then near Navy Pier.
This was the bear that comforted me, age three, after my older sister sat me in front of a TV, gave me a spoon and a giant bowl of cold mashed potatoes, and told me it was ice cream.
Nourishment, enjoyment, sharing, pleasure, life. Do what you need to do. These are thighs. Be sensuous. Get serious at last.
Someone had called him a caretaker, which sounded admirable, but he hinted the role was lonely. I thought he probably had no affection or tenderness in his life, and maybe worse, no one ever stepped up to say, “I will take care of you.”
As I have struggled occasionally in a time of disease, conflict, division, heartbreak, and financial precariousness, I have tried to understand what is necessary, what is still good.
The reason for being of the book, and one of its dramatic thrills, is that these two friends not only did not fall to the wayside but have endured. They also both pointed the way to the future.