JIM'S JOTTINGS: August 18, 2017

Black Comedy: I was describing next week’s Film Forum selection to the film group, mentioning that Harold and Maude was an example of “black comedy,” a genre that not everyone may know about. In ye olden days, it would have been called tragi-comedy, an obvious pairing of tragic and comedic elements. We think of comedy as light and tragedy as dark, so it makes sense that black comedy would be comedy that may have dark moments.

Remember “M*A*S*H?” It had a famously dark episode when the first colonel was going home. A party was given, much gaiety and frivolity ensued, then incoming wounded descended on the camp ER, and all hands were up to their elbows in blood, trying to save lives. At that point, Radar, the company clerk quietly enters with a telegram in hand. Hawkeye looks up, sees the stricken look on Radar’s face as the young man is trying to hold off the tears, and then Radar reads us the telegram, notifying the camp that the colonel’s plane had gone down over the Sea of Japan—all hands lost. All anyone can do is register grief-stricken shock, all told in the eyes, and go back to cutting and sewing the wounded. End of episode. That’s black comedy.

Really, much of the popularity of that great sit-com was its constant play of comedy and tragedy, laughing at death, laughing at the absurdity of the situation of dedicated doctors and nurses trying to save lives and stay alive in an active war zone. You laugh or go insane, right? Here’s a brief little poem by lice Walker, author of The Color Purple, that might just give us the antidote for such darkness…

Even So

Love, if it is love, never goes away.
It is embedded in us,
like seams of gold in the Earth,
waiting for light,
waiting to be struck.

Totality: Since we in WV are not in the path of totality for Monday’s eclipse, we’ll have to make do with about 83% but if you plan to watch, please make sure you get those special glasses to protect your eyes. I saw them at Walmart and I hear they are freely available around town. We were talking about the eclipse in our literary group on Wednesday and were reminded that there was a total eclipse in 1979 that covered the Northwest—I saw that one and it was fantastic. I guess most of us are lucky if we experience one in a lifetime, even though they occur about every 18 months or so, somewhere on earth, usually over water. Anyway, be careful out there.

Sequel: Checking in again with our local cinemas, we STILL do not have Al Gore’s new film here! Fear not, if it does not show up, I shall get the DVD as soon as it is on sale and we’ll show it in Film Forum—grrrrrrrr! Our Literary Group is reading Thomas Friedman’s new book, Thank you for Being Late, and in chapter six, “Mother Nature,” we find that oops, we are all doomed! It is reassuring that many states and big cities around the country re NOT giving up on activities in support of Mother Earth, and neither should we. This is NOT a political issue, folks, it is an existential issue…think on that.

OK, I am going quiet now.

Just Jim