Tuesday, July 03, 2007Castaway
I loved that movie. I'm not a big fan of Tom Hanks--Castaway and Toy Story 1 are his only movies I really liked--but it more than made up for the buffoonery of Forrest Gump. (For the last time: A box of chocolate contains chocolate. If you dip into the box and get something other than chocolate, then it wouldn't be a box of chocolate, would it?) Too bad he unredeemed himself recently with the even more pernicious buffoonery of The Da Vinci Code (vide infra).
What's left when everything is taken away? has always been a big question (for me, at least). If you were all alone with no hope of human company for an indefinite period of time, away from "civilization"--this includes internet--what things would stay that would be enough for you to still call yourself human? Would we be like cats, still finicky even when nobody's watching? How long would it take before we lose our "social" voices and start grunting or howling? (I imagine my voice would be the last accessory to go. One morning, I'll wake up to find it strange and, soon after, the rest of my grubby grub-grubbing days will be spent in grim silence.) If I were finally found, dirty, howling, and as pettable as a komodo dragon, by what ethics would I still be considered as human as my finders?
[Digression: Given that humans are natural-born accessorizers and that it's apparently okay to make accessories of chihuahuas and non-white orphans, how can we tell when we are making accessories of other people? How can we tell when we are making accessories of ourselves? A (female) lifestyle columnist once wrote that the best accessory is a (male) gay friend. (A sentiment at which my gay friends would take great umbrage, by the way.) I suppose the converse would hold true as well: that a (male) gay person's best accessory is a (female) lifestyle columnist. Gays and lifestyle columnists aside, it's cynical but truer than we'd like to admit. I can understand the urge to be alpha but it always surprises me how many people want to be accessories for looking at, their faces arranged just so.]
Hmmm. I find that this post has gotten more serious (and parenthetical) than I had intended.
As I was saying... I was thinking about the if-you-were-stranded-on-an-island-and-could-bring-only-one-author meme. The first names that came to mind were Umberto Eco and Oliver Sacks. Umberto is the more obvious choice, considering he's my boyfriend except that he doesn't know it yet. As for Oliver, having a doctor on an island is always good. Plus, he wouldn't get shocked if I started mistaking my wife for a hat.
What? Just the books, not the authors? Never mind. I'll just sit here and wait for Wilson, then.
What's left when everything is taken away? has always been a big question (for me, at least). If you were all alone with no hope of human company for an indefinite period of time, away from "civilization"--this includes internet--what things would stay that would be enough for you to still call yourself human? Would we be like cats, still finicky even when nobody's watching? How long would it take before we lose our "social" voices and start grunting or howling? (I imagine my voice would be the last accessory to go. One morning, I'll wake up to find it strange and, soon after, the rest of my grubby grub-grubbing days will be spent in grim silence.) If I were finally found, dirty, howling, and as pettable as a komodo dragon, by what ethics would I still be considered as human as my finders?
[Digression: Given that humans are natural-born accessorizers and that it's apparently okay to make accessories of chihuahuas and non-white orphans, how can we tell when we are making accessories of other people? How can we tell when we are making accessories of ourselves? A (female) lifestyle columnist once wrote that the best accessory is a (male) gay friend. (A sentiment at which my gay friends would take great umbrage, by the way.) I suppose the converse would hold true as well: that a (male) gay person's best accessory is a (female) lifestyle columnist. Gays and lifestyle columnists aside, it's cynical but truer than we'd like to admit. I can understand the urge to be alpha but it always surprises me how many people want to be accessories for looking at, their faces arranged just so.]
Hmmm. I find that this post has gotten more serious (and parenthetical) than I had intended.
As I was saying... I was thinking about the if-you-were-stranded-on-an-island-and-could-bring-only-one-author meme. The first names that came to mind were Umberto Eco and Oliver Sacks. Umberto is the more obvious choice, considering he's my boyfriend except that he doesn't know it yet. As for Oliver, having a doctor on an island is always good. Plus, he wouldn't get shocked if I started mistaking my wife for a hat.
What? Just the books, not the authors? Never mind. I'll just sit here and wait for Wilson, then.
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