reason will always fall short

 
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in The Graduate

When the movie The Graduate came out, I was nine or 10 years old, and I remember seeing an advertisement in the newspaper for it.

        When I was seventeen or eighteen years old, the History teacher in high school told our class about The Graduate.

        I think he kind of went through the whole movie, and was very enthusiastic and exuberant about the ending scene.  He was laughing and smiling and was just so into it. ...

        And - my memory is uncertain, but I believe he mentioned to us that the music in the movie was written and performed by Simon & Garfunkel.

A few years later, while I was living in Boston, I went to see The Graduate at a second-run movie theater.

Then several decades went by wherein I didn't watch The Graduate.  And now, in recent years, I see it every time it comes onto Amazon Prime Video.

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On You Tube, there are a bunch of videos analyzing The Graduate. 

A viewer comment under one of them says:

----------------- Reason will always fall short when grappling with the level of beauty and mystery emanating from sublime works of art.  "The Graduate" is no exception.  It remains, and always will remain elusive.  In the finest sense of the word. -----------------------------------

The film's director, Mike Nichols, said "It's the great American danger we're all in.  That we'll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it."

_________________________________________

-  "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me.

    Aren't you?"

-30-

unexpected, ongoing noise

 I was listening to (and part-time watching) a 1970s situation-comedy on You Tube, and there was a scene where the husband-and-wife main characters had a disagreement in the kitchen and they start throwing dishes on the floor real hard, so that they break.

It's played for laughs, of course, but it caused me to remember a sort of incident that happened many years ago, which I did not find funny, but rather, puzzling and dismaying.

        I was a student at Boston University, and part of my financial aid was my being in the Work-Study program, where you work for a professor.  I typed a lot of stuff for this guy, who was originally from Poland and came to America after World War II.

 

He invited me to rent an apartment in his basement in the Brookline home where he and his wife lived.  He said, Get a roommate, because there are two bedrooms.  He wanted two rent checks, not just one.

        I found a roommate, and we moved in.  It was very nice, for students who aren't making a living yet.  An apartment in the "basement" doesn't sound too fancy - but it was good.  The windows were partially above ground, so we had sunlight, and although there wasn't any air conditioning, our space was plenty cool in the hot, humid Boston summertimes, just naturally, from being partly underground.

It was fine.

        Then one night when I was home alone - my roommate spent some nights at her boyfriend's apartment (they got married later so it's ok) - suddenly I heard all this noise of crashing, banging, breaking dishes coming from upstairs on the main floor.

I was like, 'What the - - - ?!...?'

        I exited my small bedroom, and went out into the living room - dining room area where my stereo and record albums were, along with sofa, dining room table, and art prints on the walls...

I looked up at the ceiling - as if I'm going to be able to see what's going on,..lol 

The crashing and banging and smashing continued... the wife was yelling at the husband, in an exasperated, distressed, desperate tone, and I heard him say calmly, "I don't ever hear you talk to your friends this way...."

        I was a little scared, and intimidated, and kind of embarrassed.

I lived there for two and a half years, and that was the only time that occurred, at least when I was home to hear it.

I found it weird.

I didn't grow up in a home where people threw things or broke dishes.

I didn't know what to make of it.

        I didn't really "know" either the husband or the wife.  I worked for the husband, at school, and felt comfortable to be in his office in the School of Public Communications (SPC).  It felt just normal, and OK.

When I met his wife, I did find her vibe to be a little scary.  She seemed tense with a lot of anger, and spoke like Katharine Hepburn.  (This is not a knock on Hepburn, I'm just saying, that - certain - accent....I never knew if it was real, or put on.)

-30-

time out of mind

 ---------------------------- [excerpt from Chronicles, by Bob Dylan.  Simon & Schuster, 2004.] ------------------------

I didn't know what age of history we were in nor what the truth of it was.  Nobody bothered with that.  If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good.  

Folk songs had taught me that.  

As for what time it was, it was always just beginning to be daylight and I knew a little bit about history, too - the history of a few nations and states - and it was always the same pattern.  

        Some early archaic period where society grows and develops and thrives, then some classical period where the society reaches its maturation point and then a slacking off period where decadence makes things fall apart.  

I had no idea which one of these stages America was in.  

There was nobody to check with.  

A certain rude rhythm was making it all sway, though.  

It was pointless to think about it.  

Whatever you were thinking could be dead wrong.

-30-

"this conversation is getting a little strange"

 

The Graduate is back on Amazon Prime.

A Commenter on You Tube wrote:

--------------------- This movie was released at the height of the Beatles' popularity.  

The Vietnam War was going badly and was being protested in the streets.  

The hippie culture was rampant.  

People were questioning authority, social convention, sex and inter-personal relations.  

This movie catches lightning in a bottle.  

It is simply a gloriously brilliant critique and statement of the times.  

What a radiant burst of human genius!

-30-

2nd Man

 

That writer I met in the Black Hills is listed in the IMDb movie catalog as "2nd Man."  The guy standing next to him in front of the restaurant is "Man."  (I guess it goes left to right as we look at it - "Man" is the guy on the left who asks "Havin' some trouble, lady?")

My friend's line is spoken off-screen - the camera stays on Jessica Walter and Clint Eastwood - "Yeah, let's split.  Looks like he's got enough trouble already."

        I wonder if they had to get their SAG cards for such brief parts....

2nd Man's voice is still familiar to me - he had a way of speaking kind of matter-of-fact and yet intense, at the same time.

I received a note from him in Boston, in 1978 or '79 wherein he informed  me that he had finished writing and editing the novel; he said it took a lot of work and added, "I'll never smile again."

        I had the impression that "I'll never smile again" was maybe an expression common in his generation.

I learned later it was the name of a song by Tommy Dorsey.

-30-

"...but the point is probably moot"

 

At a wedding dance, all kinds of songs were being played (streamed through AI) - it was so good, and then there were a lot of songs that I didn't know but the young people (teens to 26 years old, approx.) were singing every word along with the recordings.

        Then the guy played "Jessie's Girl" and the kids were singing that one, too, and my brain did a double-take:  wait, that song came out in 1981, how do these people know this song...?

I thought "Jessie's GIrl" must have been used in a movie that they all saw, or something like that.

Had to go home and Google:  it said "twenty-two-year-olds know Rick Springfield's 1981 hit "Jessie's Girl" primarily through pop culture osmosis...."

        It said the song was in a film called Boogie Nights, and was covered on the TV show Glee.

It also says, "The song is a default karaoke standard, frequently plays at sporting events, and is heavily featured in coming-of-age comedies, embedding it in the cultural zeitgeist."

-30-

unanticipated acquaintance

 

        When some other kids and I went to meet the writer - actor - restaurateur in the summer of '77, it occurred to me that he kind of didn't mind some company because - it was probably one of those times when - a person who leads a busy life in Carmel, California, with social events and atmospheres and all, and he's writing a novel but hasn't got it finished, says to himself, "I'm going to take a break, stay in our family's cabin in the Black Hills for a little bit, and finish writing my book.  I can concentrate there; I'll be alone there; no distractions."

So he goes; he types; he smokes cigarettes.

At some point, however, he starts to feel like:  "All this alone-time.  I miss socializing."

Right?

We want something.  Then we have it.  Then pretty soon we want the thing we had before.  Some conversation; some dancing; blah-blah-blah.

-30-