A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, September 4, 2009

One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

I don't know why I was reading Tim Goodman's column in the Chron today about new shows on the CW, which I never watch and am not even sure how to find on my DirecTV feed. But I came across this sentence in its account of the new revival of "Melrose Place":

But L.A. still corrupts: Someone dies in the pilot; a med student has to essentially become a hooker; there are drugs, mean publicists, bisexuality, infidelity and the world's least believable art thief.


I was reminded of the old "Sesame Street" bit, "One of These Things Is Not Like the Others." That is, death, prostitution, drug abuse, "mean publicists," infidelity and art theft can all more or less legitimately be considered "corrupt." But in this day and age, and especially in San Francisco, isn't bisexuality just another orientation?

Old prejudices die hard, I guess.
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