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contours provocations
journal - 2001-0416 - mon 2030 Roswell; Weak-End; QAF, Iconography and Surprises Another one of those entries made while half-watching Roswell which has been on hiatus for six weeks, and what is wrong with WB for depriving me of the chance to ogle Jason Behr. Shame! Shame! Shame! Are they really going to kill off Colin Hanks? The pre-cursors were obvious tonight. "For some reason, I had the feeling this would be the last time we'd all be together," Liz said. I'd read somewhere, he wanted to do more movie work. Seems likes some other people have said that only to face box office indifference. I did almost nothing this weekend. I did sleep a lot. Last week when I was sick, my sleeping patterns began to drift and were totally whacked by the Friday when I didn't go to sleep until almost 4 am. And finally got out of bed around 1 pm. And then the same thing happened Saturday night. BUT last night by some miracle, I dozed off shortly after midnight. Many people plan every second of their weekend, but I've never found that very inticing. It strikes me as though you're having to work to have fun. And then there are those who must be busy at all cost as though it were necessary to ward off having to think or be self-aware. QAF had a segment last night that was perversly sublime. Michael and Dr. Dave throw a fancy fund-raiser for a senator. The others are not invited. So they show up uninvited: Brain dressed as Euro-trash; Deb dressed as, well, Deb; Ted all in black lether; Justin as club kid. Vic showed up in a Quintin Crisp outfit, which I thought was fairly clever, because I'd never have thought of it. And Emmett came in Jackie Kennedy drag: specifically pink Chanel suit and black pillbox hat, ala Dallas motorcade. Jackie (Emmett) stands facing the camera, a waiter passes while holding a shrimp cocktail, which he drops splashing the sauce across the pink Chanel suit. Which created an instant impression of the famous photos of the real Jackie in the blood-stained outfit. By no means am I trying to trivialize the events of Dallas in '63. I was thinking far more in terms of how those images have become part of the American iconography. And how the event is eched in the individual psyche. Ask anyone who is old enough to have been alive at that time, and they can tell you exactly where they were when they first heard about the assassination. Very few events fall into that category. Possibilities might be the Challenger explosion; shooting of Robert Kennedy; murder of Martin Luther King; murder of John Lennon; suicide of Kurt Cobain; shootings at Columbine. I'm not saying that I found the QAF moment funny. What I felt was more a sense of utter surprise at a moment that I did not forsee. And a curious sense of amazement at the engineering needed to create and carry off the idea. Surprise is one of the great overlooked emotions. It is certainly the key to most jokes. But I'm also thinking of it in sexual terms. Consider the last time your partner did something surprising in a sexual context, and you'll see what I mean. PAX!
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