On Saturday I had lunch with a friend named Tony (she is close to Jim and Nancy) and with another lady my age or a little younger from the same circle. The Indian buffet is a place that I once loved to patronize on Saturdays midday. Now the spices have gotten too potent for my damaged taste buds. The radiation oncologist who treated me seven years ago neglected to inform me that the damage to my mouth and throat would get worse with time. On Sunday I invited Mark and a lady who swims at the same time in the Y, Terri, and her friend, Kathryn who was an ISU professor of creative writing (poetry), now retired. It turns out that she is from a small Southern Illinois village near where I did research during my “Egyptian Darkness phase.” I thought that her reticence was familiar, or is she just a modest person? She was kind enough to read my Egyptian Darkness narrative on the personal page of our blog. As soon as I think of someone else reading one of my productions, I immediately recognize its glaring flaws. In this case, the flaw is my condescending tone. I made a big production of reuniting with the world of my youth, but in doing so, in finding it “interesting,” I really flew over it at the high altitude of my irrepressible self-regard. It reeks of condescension, despite the genuine empathy and affection I felt for the underdog milieu of my origins. Maybe this isn’t so bad since I do identify with the underdog. My self-image as an admitted, defiant loser may be a source of stoic strength during my physical decline. During the last ten days, it’s been a bit steeper than usual. I may soon need a walker for the Y.
On Tuesday afternoon, I went to see Oppenheimer with my two new friends. What a strange film. Determined to remain true to American Prometheus, its biographical source, the film flashes back and forth to and from the interminable committee hearings that led to his lost security clearance, with only a single dynamite visual, the explosion, and dependent on a main character who is never fully developed as a person or in relation to his friends and loved ones. Nonetheless, the bad guys are as always ripe to be booed. Oppenheimer is not really a good guy, not a sacrificial lamb, but a peacock who flirts with being god. Teller is the only one easy to read and to imagine in context: build bigger and more destructive bombs! He was the winner, not the petty striver Strauss, certainly not the self-deluded Oppenheimer.
Signed,
Andrew (Weeks)
Normal Thoughts 