Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: January 2019

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

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Out With the Old

New Year's Day seems like a good time to call a halt, even if it turns out to be only a temporary one, to this blog. More and more it has seemed like an obstacle to be overcome: I have books I haven't read, rooms I haven't dusted, floors I haven't mopped, and, yes, movies I haven't watched partly because I didn't want to force myself to write about them. So, Happy New Year to all, and to all a see you later.