Jumble Tumble Crumble -- A Hodge Podge of Recent Scribblings (Worth a look, actually)

Friday 5/19

In many jobs you have to attend meetings. Some jobs require a lot of meetings. This is generally not a good thing. Actually probably never. I’ve been a teacher for decades, anyone outside the education racket would likely be shocked at how damn many meetings teachers have to attend. It’s a lot. This was much more so when I taught in public school. Staff meetings, faculty meetings, department meetings, team meetings, parent conferences and any committees you may be a part of, either by volunteering (sucker!) or by fiat. If you’re a union rep you’ve got yourself a whole other batch of meetings — in this case for a decidedly good cause.

Meetings can be necessary and productive, especially if they are specific and relate directly to the attendees. Did you know that a lot of meetings are held because they are scheduled and not because they are needed? Did you further know that meetings will sometimes fill a specified amount —an hour, for example — despite the fact that there is only half an hour’s worth of business to attend to?

As I write this I’m sitting in an hour long meeting that has yet to feature so much as one iota of information that is relevant to me. The sum of the presentations — by four different people, so far — could have been condensed into a two paragraph email or a five minute announcement. Yet here I am half listening on the off chance that something will be said that I need to know. I think leading a meeting is like teaching a class, you've got to know your audience and your presentation has to be given with as few words as possible. Also you need to read the room and adjust on the fly. The fact is that teachers are more likely to be presenting relevant material than the useless garbage you're subjected to in meetings.

Saturday 5/20
I watched The Long Voyage Home (1940) directed by John Ford. In my estimation its his most underrated film and it features my favorite John Wayne performance (not that I am generally enamored of Wayne's acting.) The film is beautifully shot with amazing shot composition and brilliant use of shadows and lighting. I'm hoping that the good folks at Criterion will release it someday soon. It deserves the full treatment.

Sunday 5/21

Someone said this about a friend: “he never has a bad word to say about anybody.”  

Fuck that guy. 

First of all he’s making the rest of us look bad. Secondly he’s making the rest of us look bad and third he’s making the rest of us look bad.

Get with the program, buddy, trashing people is a perfectly natural, sometimes healthy practice. Like most anything, overdoing it is bad for you but in moderation talking shit about other people is nothing to be ashamed of. Whattaya gonna do when there’s some jerk at work that everyone is having a go about during lunch? You’re gonna sit there while everyone else is running Sid down one side and up the other? What are you, one of those jerks who says, “aww, he’s a nice guy.” Ole Sid has been getting on people’s nerves for weeks, maybe months, maybe years with his haughty attitude, inappropriate remarks and selfishness, now you’re going to give with the old “he’s a nice guy, bit?” Gimme a break. By your use of the term anyone this side of a serial killer is a “nice guy.” Don’t let people off so easy.

Okay my tongue was spending considerable time in cheek with that last bit but I do doubt those goody two shoes who claim to never say anything bad, they're just not trying hard enough or they're brain dead.

Monday 5/22 

So what’s it like here fully encased in depression? For one thing it’s slow. Thoughts take their time formulating, speech comes as if I were sedated. Also it’s sad. Very, very sad. Yesterday and all the days before it seem wasted, tomorrow and all the days to follow look bleak. Today is dark and hopeless.

There’s no reason, no method, just….The dull ache of depression. If you've never had it, depression seems a simple thing to rid yourself. Shake it off. Occupy yourself. Make love. Drink. The words easier said then done come to mind. Distracting depression can be done. An episode of The Simpsons can do it. But that episode ends and you're right back encased in the pain.

Tuesday 5/23

Hospice. My friend’s wife was updating all concerned about Paul’s condition. I told the missus I was dreading the one that had the word hospice in it. Sunday there it was. Fifth word in. Jumped off the page like a blaring siren. Unmistakable. A deceptively pleasant sounding word. Hospice. After all it’s good people performing an important task with great compassion. But it meant that Paul, with whom I go back to freshman year of college, was going to die soon. Heavy heart is an apt way of describing that feeling. Mine felt like a brick.

He will be dead. You can say he passed or that we lost him but that will not alter the grim reality that his life will be no more. My good friend Kevin already died this year. There’s only so much a person can take.

(FUCKING PANCREATIC CANCER!)

Lot of messages on Paul’s Caring Bridge site. Apparently Paul is in a lot of thoughts and prayers as is his family. I don’t have prayers for him to be in but he’s prominent in my thoughts.

There are lessons to be learned like make each day special, live life to the fullest, appreciate every day, they are gifts. That’s the type of thing that sounds great but practically speaking is impossible. Some days just suck. Some days you’re busy. Many of my days I’m battling depression. But I can keep Paul in my heart and remember how he lived with such relish for life. I can learn I can draw inspiration. I’d rather he was cancer free.

Wednesday 5/24

Today on Paul's Caring Bridge site someone named Cindy wrote the following:
"Paul, I have been planning to call you to see how things are going. We miss you tremendously at work. It has been extremely busy- CWF is coming together, and I have been spending more time than I would like in Sacramento. I have been half expecting you to have this cancer thing licked by now, knowing your strength of mind and self discipline. Keep hanging in there. If anyone can conquer cancer, you can."

Poor Cindy is spending more time in Sacramento than she'd like to. The American tragedy that Dreiser didn't write about. But Paul learns that CWF is coming together. That'll be just the tonic for the man in hospice. She also suggests that if anyone "can conquer cancer" Paul can. She is evidently unclear on the concept of hospice. Ya know, some people are better off just sending their thoughts and prayers.

Tribute to a Friend

Paul on the left with the author circa 1986.

“You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.” 
-- Black Elk from Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

Freshmen year in the dorms 1971 at Chico State there was this gangly geeky looking guy. He was tall, slender, face pocked from acne. He wore plain glasses and clothing so ordinary it was darn near weird. He had short dark hair and walked with a stoop. His name was Paul Tjogas and I’d never seen a nerdier looking guy in my life. He was especially nerdy given the time period as this was when most everyone in their late teens and early twenties felt free to wear whatever — usually colorful — clothes caught their fancy and let their hair down, figuratively and literally.  Not Paul, though. His roommates once gave me a peek into his chest of drawers and closet. Everything was lined up neatly in order and this included white undershirts, no one was wearing white undershirts then. Well, except for Paul.

One of my first “encounters” with Paul was while walking down the halls of the dorm. Someone said my name. I looked around and Paul was the only person I saw, walking a good 15 yards behind me with his head down. There was no indication that he’d said my name but if not him, who? This was a weird trick of Paul’s. Saying a person’s name and pretending he hadn’t. I never quite saw the point of it but then again if you weren’t the target it could be amusing.

I became friends with one of Paul’s roommates and with Paul himself shortly thereafter. No, I wouldn’t have predicted that I, coming from Berkeley in the Sixties, already a veteran of anti-war demonstrations and LSD trips, would befriend someone who seemed to be the straightest, squarest, white male on the planet. But Paul defied all expectations. He was never what he seemed.

Yes, we were both athletes (Paul was a runner and I was a soccer player) and sports fans and we liked the same teams (SF Giants and 49ers) but our friendship was and has always remained about much more than sports.

Paul won me over when he expressed admiration for 17 year old Jonathan Jackson who brazenly took a judge and others hostage in an effort to negotiate the freedom of the Soledad Brothers. It was a doomed mission and arguably a bad idea but Paul was impressed by young man’s display of courage. Indeed Paul may have looked the young republican but his political views were nearer to my New Left philosophy than to conservatism.

By the end of our freshman year Paul and I were buddies. Like all my close friends I was attracted to Paul for two main reasons: he loved life and he marched to the beat of a different and very hip drummer. Here was a man who, far from succumbing to cynicism as many of us then did, maintained an infectious enthusiasm for life. Paul also was gifted with a strong work ethic which accounts for academic achievements and long and successful career in engineering. Paul didn’t just hit the books, he beat them to a pulp; yet he managed to fill his free time with the kind of silly nonsense college males have long been notorious for. Paul and the Durham Boys were a highlight of Chico’s annual Pioneer Week parade.

We were roommates twice in college so I was witness to the long hours he spent sequestered with textbooks, t squares, pencils, paper (graph and lined) and notebooks. But I also enjoyed shenanigans with him a few of which I would blush to make public. Suffice to say we were were rowdy, randy lads with senses of humors that veered between sarcastic, slapstick, bawdy, surreal and outrageous. We also embraced irony. Paul and I hosted what we called the Donald DeFreeze (Cinque) Memorial kegger in “honor” of the slain SLA leader. We didn’t really admire Cinque at all, it was just funnier than naming a party for a real hero or — god forbid — just calling it a party or kegger.

Approaching his mid twenties Paul metamorphosed, his acne was clearing up, his hair was growing to a more natural length. But around the fairer sex he remained painfully shy. A girlfriend of mine at the time and I took it upon ourselves to set him up with a likely lass. This worked out so well that the Paul and the woman eventually married. Then again they subsequently divorced. In any event I take partial credit for getting Paul active in the game of love. His continued participation bore fruit with his second marriage which remains a raving success to this day. A person like Paul deserves a happy marriage and his second eventually led to two beautiful children who today excel as athletes, students and people. How could Paul produce anything less?

My two turns as a roommate of Paul’s were a delight. He was as responsible as I was irresponsible, as clean and neat as I was sloppy and as reliable as I was flaky. Of course while he was setting a course for career success I was perfecting my drinking and womanizing skills neither, of which do I put to use anymore.

Paul graduated and immediately got a job in Southern California and eventually earned his MA. I stayed in Chico and drank but also started a career in journalism. Over a seven year period we did not see each other and our only contact was one phone call around the time the 49ers won their first Super Bowl. But a few years after that Paul re-located to the Bay Area as I had a year before. We immediately got together and it was like we’d never parted. We knew and understood one another so well that we were more like family than just ole college buddies. I loved the guy.

A few years after returning Paul and first wife realized that happily ever after did not apply to their relationship. This is always a difficult time for a man and I was more than happy to help Paul through it. He actually rebounded quite quickly and went straightaway into the dating scene. This is always problematical once you enter your 30s and I listened to Paul’s war stories, offering whatever hope I could. Meanwhile I had stumbled into marriage with the woman of my dream’s and we had two daughters. I gave Paul the honorary title of Godfather to both of them. This was more an homage to the film and less to religion. He earned the title. I actually bragged to people about how nice my friend Paul was to my daughter’s. Once after a Giant game I lamented that I couldn’t quite afford the Giant’s teddy bear I wanted to give my oldest. So Paul bought it for.

Paul was a frequent visitor to our abode in his bachelor days. I once told oldest daughter that this regular guest was the governor of California and being a toddler she believed her dear old dad. Thus Paul was, for a time, referred to around our place as the governor.

We regularly attended sports events together particularly Giants’ games. The team is Paul’s great love and the two make a great couple because they are both classy as hell. Paul has always possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of sports, particularly in regard to his favorite teams. Going to games with Paul is like being with a walking talking reference book. But it’s also like going with Jerry Seinfeld. I’m a bit of wit myself so even during the most dreary defeats Paul and I could chuckle, guffaw and snicker our way through. You couldn’t go to a game with Paul and not have fun. Of course it wasn’t just giggles, Paul and I have explored all manner of topics such as politics, films, family and history. Paul can talk, but he can also listen.

When Paul met Deb it was a great source of happiness for me. It was clear from the beginning that here was a couple destined for one another. Paul did not gush sentimentally about her, he just matter-of-factly explained why they worked together. Not as romantic maybe but a better sign for the future. I was honored to be part of the wedding party and just being at the wedding was an early highlight in my daughters’ lives.

Paul’s children, Darryl and Chloe have proved what I long suspected and that is that Paul had all the makings of an all star father. His patience and love have guaranteed that his off spring would do Paul proud.

Bu Paul shares a common characteristic with all people I’ve ever met: he’s not perfect. I could omit reference to his shortcomings but that would render this writing meaningless hagiography and deprive of it of a crucial point.

So sure, Paul has his imperfections (I hasten to add they are few in number and none are serious). Over the years with me he became self absorbed and omitted me from our conversations. I often felt that I was sitting through a monologue rather than participating in a dialogue. As my career changed Paul showed little curiosity in my new doings. Often when I made observations or offered opinions Paul would gratuitously contradict me. People have been guilty of far worse. I finally tired of feeling like a second class citizen and let Paul know it in no uncertain terms. Did I look Paul square in the eye and articulate my grievances? No I wrote an email and my tone did not leave open the possibility of reconciliation. I can be and have been a grade A idiot. To Paul’s great credit he responded most graciously and acknowledged his behavior. I then spent several years having second thoughts about what I’d done. And not trying to rectify it.

It is true that I am bipolar. Generally speaking this causes periods of bottom feeding depression. It can also cause me to be impulsive and stubborn and to get stuck in situations. No excuses though, I own what I did. I have learned an important life lesson that I want to here pass along: if you have enjoyed a long term friendship, you have participated in a great gift of life, don’t squander it. If issues arise between you and your friend, resolve them openly and honestly and try to maintain contact. Friends are far too valuable to toss aside.

I finally reached out to Paul after years in an effort to make amends. It was shortly thereafter that I discovered  that he finds himself in a physical struggle. It’s the kind of thing he doesn’t deserve to be saddled with but that he is just tough enough a customer to handle.

I wish I’d been there for him from the beginning of that struggle and I hope he knows I’m with him in spirit now and that I regret those years of playing the aggrieved. When you spend years building a strong friendship there's no sense in abandoning it.

Paul deserves all the love and respect I can provide. He’s a damn good friend because he’s a goddamned good person.

Happiness, Depression, Wanting More Visions, No High is Good Enough -- The Ordinary Thoughts of a Bi Polar Man

Myrna Loy, I'd welcome a chat with her ghost.

“But I remember seeing a mess of leaves suddenly go skittering in the wind and into the creek, then floating rapidly down the creek towards the sea, making me feel a nameless horror even then of 'Oh my God, we're all being swept away to sea no matter what we know or say or do.” 
-- From Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

I was really happy for a little while. I’d had a good run after seeing my psychiatrist and been productive all day. It can go like that. Pure joy. Body feels supernatural, energy coursing through veins. Anything possible, the future an open lane two carriages wide, lined with flowers and I can stroll, strut, saunter, amble, sprint, dash down it any way I want. Then — clink — something happens. It’s small. No permanent damages, no hurt feelings. Just an annoyance really. And I’m falling through the trapdoor with the nice, tight noose around my neck. Back in the doldrums. And is there any point even trying to crawl back out. Surrounded by the dire black of inescapable sorrow.

These things happen. Endings come. There is death. There is pain. There is suffering. There is injustice. There is the unyielding burden of living with a brain that sometimes sees only the enveloping storm clouds. Bitter. Hungry for hope. Starved.

Anxiety visits from time to time. Reeling and rollicking and kicking up a storm, making the mind a twisting reckless guidance system. It can overwhelm too. Take over the central nervous system. Oh god please not that lack of control that terror, silently hysterical. But I…I who am nothing…I who for some moments of some days is everything…I hold on and carry on.

I don’t miss work. I show up and I never alter a lesson that I’m about to teach because of “how I’m feeling.” Professionalism. For me its power supersedes “feelings” or pain or discomfort of fear or even that horrible rash — rashes — I’ve suffered and I do mean suffered.

Sidebar: My psychiatrist put me on lamictal which is a mostly effective drug for people with bipolar disorder. We gradually started to increase in hopes of positive results. Instead the increase brought a rash — on the arms, legs, back and feet — that was pervasive and angry and itched like hell. I mean it, like hell because surely if there was such a place it would be home to such mad desire to scratch, a desire so all encompassing that one bled from the scratching. Off the lamictal I went and on to abillify which is known to be equally effective. It proved equally effective at causing the rash from hell. Wonder what’s next.

It’s critical to take care of what’s in front of you. Work has to be done, appointments kept, chores finished, exercising and eating and sleeping must be maintained. Sure the depression will fight you on some of these but you’ve got to push through enemy lines whenever and wherever possible. One thing I have had to do is maintain my work ethic. I have students who expect me not only to show up but to put on my usual show. I need to educate and entertain and be responsive and sensitive and clever and flexible and aware of classroom dynamics. This I do. It is what I am proud of. Depression, you do not stop me from teaching. Period.

I see things now. Oh I know they aren’t real, they’re just visions and they only last a few seconds and I generally don’t interact with them but they’re there as projected by my battered, tattered brain. Sometimes I see a deceased relative or friend. It’s actually quite comforting. It gives me the feeling that they’re not completely dead that their live force and influence are still present in the world. I’d actually like to have more visions. Allen Ginsberg saw William Blake. How cool would that be? I’ve felt the presence of Ginsberg himself and of Kerouac and other notables but it’s always been rather vague and short-lived. I’d like an extended visit of an apparition that looked for all the world like a regular living human being and whose voice I could hear loud and clear and whose message was unassailable and clear. 

Thomas Wolfe would be nice. Maybe Malcolm X or Bobby Kennedy. I’d welcome Groucho Marx, Thomas Hardy, Christy Mathewson or any of a number of women like Marilyn Monroe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mryna Loy, Joan of Arc or how about Josephine Baker? Whoever visited could sit right next to me here on the sofa and we could chat. I wouldn’t be freaked out at all. I’d ask some questions, get some advice, share some perspectives. It’d be fun and for me enlightening. If need be I wouldn’t share the visit with anyone. Or if it was acceptable I’d write about on this here blog or publish a piece in Hallucinator’s Monthly.

When I was a teenager I dropped acid a few times. I really like the hallucinations. I loved the way trees would seem to flow and have trails and be different colors and everything was a little off kilter. It was a different way of not just seeing but experiencing the world. I got a lot out of it and have spent much of my life believing that the only way one could achieve true and honest understanding of the world is through having experimented with hallucinogens. Then I had a bad trip. My god that was awful. It was too close to the feeling I got growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Everything was different and everything was bad, very bad, magnified bad. It was like being depressed only the depression was a living force that spoke to you in a maniacal cackle. It was around then that I had my first panic attack and whether my susceptibility to panic influenced my bad trip or the other way around, I cannot say.

A few times subsequent when I smoked some particularly strong marijuana I would get panicky. It was a calm panic. Kind of like receiving sobering news while getting blotto. My brain found booze to be the safest drug although I loved cocaine. Coke was especially good because it kept me awake for more liquor. How I did love to drink. There was never enough. Too much did not exist.

Getting high was like searching for the ultimate. But the ultimate what? The ultimate high? Sure, there was that but that was just part of the picture. I wanted women, the perfect one and the perfect night of sex and I wanted to have great deep conversations with brilliant people and reach profound insights. I wanted to hear the best music and dance and feel the glory of a thousand victories and soar among the clouds and travel the world all in that one night. Usually I just managed to get stinking drunk and woke up the next day with a vicious hangover that I would eventually require a hair of the dog to assuage.

I've been clean for decades. Better to wage the wars against mental illness. Somehow I never despair. Not even when in the worst of depression. There is still a voice somewhere telling me that there is an end to this tunnel and I will reach it. Just hang in there. And so I do. I'm sticking around for when the good days start piling up, dozens upon dozens in a row and I can smile everyday and not just pursue happiness, but be pursued by it. Right on.

What's Happening With the Usually Benighted Author of this Here Blog

My good friend Rihanna who I recently accompanied to a dental appointment.

Some people have told me that they keep up with my doings by checking my blog every now and again. I imagine this is not an ideal way to follow yours truly as quite often I write reminiscences or about films or my views on pterodactyl hunting. Then again if depression, panic or paranoid delusions have me in there grip readers will be kept up to date. Be that as it may, as a service to those of you who want to know “waz up?” with me, I provide this laundry list of my recent doings. I do this primarily because there’s been a lot going on with me lately that I’ve not taken time to write about and I believe much of would be of interest to the general reader, not to mention my acquaintances, friends, associates, colleagues, confidants, paramours, chums, pals, homeboys, bitter rivals, enemies, neighbors and stalkers and stalkees.

So here’s the latest.

Two weeks ago I continued my top secret work as an agent for a foreign country (you seriously don’t think I can tell you which one, do you?). I snuck into the pentagon and took photos of highly sensitive documents. Later I did the same over at the CIA. Was caught in the act at one point so had to liquidate a security guard — my condolences to the Clank family of Virginia Beach.

I recently dined with the Baron and Baroness Von Hapsburg at their lovely chalet in the Strudel Mountains. The Baron had recently defended his wife’s honor (which is more than she's ever done) in a duel with a Romanian Count and was none the worse for wear.

Last week I looked up the word "sonorous" in the dictionary and spent a few days inserting it into conversations. My friends found this to be somewhat sonorous on my part while co-workers found me sonorous for doing it. Family members responded sonorously.

My bagpipe lessons have continued with great success. My teacher, Mr. McGillicuddy, says that within a few decades I'll be able to graduate from rank beginner. Neighborhood dogs continue to howl in protest whenever I play but I carry on undaunted.

Discovered that the capacity to forgive and the willingness to do so is the greatest power we hold as humans.

Whirled and whirring and finding folly in loving lashes of pure perfection made me more happily heroic. Sorta.

Ran afoul of the law. Nothing serious, mind you. Suffice to say that that's the last time I carry explosives with me. The officers were pretty good about the whole thing although my bazooka has been confiscated. Thank goodness I'd left my howitzer at home.

Created a bridge of understanding between people of divergent backgrounds with dissimilar life experiences and world views. Ate a muffin.

Vacationed in the Congo staying at my cousin Mugabe Hourula's house. Wrestled a gorilla. Then stopped off in Haifa to see my cousin Chaim Hourula. Sat seder.

Watched some re-runs of The Newlywed Game and thereby gained insight into the origins of the solar system. Witnessed the big bang during a hallucination which was precipitated by viewing too many car commercials.

Learned to speak fluent Iroquois. Carried on a long but one sided conversation with a deaf mute who turned out to be Apache. Sometimes I've got no luck.

Translated the Merriam-Webster dictionary into pig latin with the help of my friend Vaughn Castlemack who, it turns out, is deceased. He fooled me.

Babysat some Victoria Secrets models. We had a pillow fight and ate fennel.

Continued to dig for buried treasure, have thus far been only to find some priceless relics which I'm selling on eBay.

Danced by the light of the silvery moon. This was my first such experience having mistakenly danced by the light of the slivery moon in the past.

Tried to write a list of people who are bigger idiots than Donald Trump. After managing only the names of a few Fox News commentators, republican congressmen and tin pot dictators I gave up.

Bought low and sold high. Made a nickel in the process.

Performed my one man show at Carnegie Hall. My revue included a full orchestra and a group of actors and some can can dancers as I am unclear on the concept. Also played the trumpet for an a cappella choir, further establishing my bona fides as Mr. Unclear on the Concept. Thank you. Next I will be writing scripts for my improv group and dialogue for a mime troupe.

Dug in my heels. Made a stand. Refused to yield. Stuck to my guns. Held firm. Double downed. Battened down the hatches. Held the fort.

Personally escorted Rihanna to her dentist appointment, sat in the waiting room reading Redbook which was not a book at all.

Having developed the capacity to read minds I wondered the city streets and was shocked to find out how many people were thinking about micro waved macaroni and cheese. Was mildly surprised that so many women found me irresistibly attractive.

Join the US navy and promptly went AWOL. Am working on a full length novel regarding this experience.

Led a polar expedition only to find out once there that the North Pole has long since been discovered. Still wanting to make history recorded the first polka danced on the polar surface. New dance craze started called the Polar Polka performed by Pete and Pat Patterson the Polar Polka Princes. High Times magazine gave us four stars.

And just the other day I diverted attention, stole the spotlight, hammed it up, ran the gamut, played the fool, kept it on the down low, reached for the stars, chased my dreams, stooped to conquer, picked my spots, went all out, left nothing to chance, played the odds, waxed poetic, said my piece, played a hunch, ran amuck, took it to the limit, threw caution to the wind and wrapped it up.

As for today, well, I wrote a rather silly blog post about my recent doings. Am thus far undecided about whether I should post it. Will consult with my imaginary friend, Olaf. “What say you friend, Olaf?”

So it appears to be a go.

The Code Word is Aardvark - or - How Antonioni's L'Eclisse Could be a Spy Movie

I was watching Antonioni’s masterful film, L’Eclisse on DVD. Early on two characters are speaking. I know a little Italian but not enough to render subtitles extraneous. So I’m reading them during the conversation. The male character asks the female (played by Monica Vitti) if she’d like him to call her later. This is ably translated and shown in the subtitles. Vitti’s character responds by saying what sounds like the word, “no.” However this is not translated and viewers not conversant in Italian are left to wonder if the Italian sound “no” means the same in their language as it does in English. For all anyone knows the “no” sound in Italian could mean something else entirely like, “aardvark.” (It doesn’t but I’m making a point here.)

So you’re watching L’Eclisse let’s say for the first time, you’re still in the first scene and a character utters a word that you can’t be sure means “no” and may in fact mean “aardvark.” So if the latter you’re going to speculate as to why a person would answer a question regarding making a phone call by naming an animal, one that is, according to my good friends at Wikipedia: “….a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. The aardvark is sometimes colloquially called ‘African ant bear’ ‘anteater’ (not to be confused with the South American anteater), or the ‘Cape anteater’ after the Cape of Good Hope.”

You’d likely consider that perhaps the use of the word “aardvark” was code and that the two characters were spies. This would lead to speculation regarding the sudden use of a code word. Did they suspect that there were listening devices in the house? Was the question about calling later a coded message? Could there have been other coded messages within their dialogue? Will all this be revealed to us later in the film or is this one of those deals where we’ll have to ‘read the book.’ And if we do have to read the book what if it’s out of print and hard to get? Or what if the book is really long or what if it sucks or what if it is both long and sucks. That could put one in a deuce of a pickle.

All of this confusion is just based on a supposition that aardvark was the untranslated word. Maybe the untranslated word was “sure.” Thus the woman was inviting a phone call later in the evening. Changes everything though not as much as if the word was aardvark. Of course if the answer was “sure” maybe it was sarcastic. It’s not worth thinking about. It’s also perhaps not worth thinking about the thousands of other words that he woman might have said. A lot of them would be similar to aardvark in that they would not seem to make sense in answering the question. Examples include: sycamore, lioness, pulverize, curricular, bassoon, ensign or umbrella. Again if it was one of these words or a similarly obscure one, it could only mean that the word was code.

This actually might serve to pique the viewer’s interest. Someone without foreknowledge of the movie could find themselves excited at the prospect of a spy thriller with Miss Monica Vitti as the lovely heroine. Maybe this would also feature the Italian James Bond. After all Alain Delon, then a young dashing figure, was the listed co star and he could more than fill the bill as a suave secret agent. Could this mean that Monica Vitti would be a fellow agent? Surely not an enemy one? It would not seem that she would be a vulnerable femme fatale who needed rescuing or an evil seductress. Too big a star for that.

Further complications would arise as the viewer was forced to look for other spoken words that contained hidden meanings. The mind boggles. A couple of scenes early in the film would compound the viewer’s confusion. One takes place in the apartment of a friend of our main character. The friend is recently returned from a long stay in Kenya and has an apartment decorated with African art. Ms. Vitti’s character dons some African attire, darkens her face and dances to tribal music. It’s an odd scene but if one is convinced that they are watching a spy film it takes on additional and more mysterious meanings. Especially when the hosts tires of playing African. Another scene (and indeed there are others there) unfolds in Rome’s stock market and of course international financial intrigue is just the stuff of the spy genre. At one point Ms. Vitti follows a man who she has been told has that day lost millions. We were to believe that she is curious about how someone reacts to taking such a beating but our heroine pilfers a napkin he doodled on. She shows the doodles to Alain Delon. Surely they contain a message central to the entire plot. The failure to translate the word sounding like “no” has now born serious consequences in the mind of the viewer.

Later Mr. Delon’s car is stolen. This would further suggest to confused viewers that spy games are afoot. Surely the car contained vital secrets or was specially equipped. The next morning the car is dredged from a river. There is a body in the car but does it belong to the thief or, more importantly, to an enemy spy? Was something extracted from the car? One is left to wonder.

The mysteries pile up for our befuddled viewer. The languid pace, the long silent stretches, the shots of buildings, trees rustling in the wind, street lights, people walking seemingly without direction. What does it all mean? And how does one explain the ever-changing nature of the Vitti-Delon interactions. Of course there are no references to aardvark anymore, at least nothing that one can detect.

L’Eclisse finally ends, more like stops and the word “Fine” appears on the screen. Is this the Italian variation of “The End”? Or is this another message? Does it mean everything is fine? One can go mad trying to decipher the hidden meanings. All this because of the failure to translate the “no” sound. But this may be a wasted exercise, though, because sometimes no means no.

I Love Films and Here's Why

Ingmar Bergman  Woody Allen  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  Humphrey Bogart  Jules quoting bible verse in Pulp Fiction  The way John Ford frames shots  Barbara Stanwyck seducing Henry Fonda in Lady Eve falling for Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe making a monkey out of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity  Europa switching from black and white to color and back Chaplin's Little Tramp  Jake Giddes being told it’s Chinatown  Redford and Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein  Psycho  Joel Grey MC in Cabaret  William Holden  Denzel  Fellini  The Bicycle Thieves  The exquisite beauty of Barry Lyndon  The exquisite mystery of 2001  Happy couple in the city in Murnau’s Sunrise  Brando and Leigh in Streetcar  The tracking shots in Goodfellas

Franklin Pangborn perennial bit player in '30s and '40s  Vivre Sa Vie  Battleship Potemkin  Indiana Jones outrunning a boulder  Alec Baldwin’s pep talk in Glengarry  Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in Birdman  The shadows in The Third Man  Llewyn Davis gamely trying to become a star Faye Dunaway more than holding her own opposite Nicholson McQueen Hoffman Beatty Some Like it Hot  Finding out who Tyler Durden really is  Tarkovsky  The cinema photography in Raging Bull  The soundtrack to Midnight in Paris  The helicopter and The Doors in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now  Myna Loy and William Powell on screen banter  The ending of Melancholia  The ensemble cast of Down by Law  Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem Harold Lloyd  The dialogue, the humor, the story in His Girl Friday  Cary Grant opposite Irene Dunne Ann Sheridan Jean Arthur Constance Bennett Rosalind Russell Katherine Hepburn Ingrid Bergman  The Great Escape  The climactic dance scene in Footloose  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  Antonious Block vs. The Devil in Seventh Seal  It’s party time in Animal House Jimmy Stewart transforming Kim Novak in Vertigo  Marlene Dietrich  Hearts and Minds  Wes Anderson  Au Revoir Les Enfants Chimes at Midnight  Persona Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott in Ride the High Country  The Bride of Frankenstein  The Rug and White Russians in The Big Lebowski  The flawless career of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki  Ping ping ping in Das Boot  Taking your date to see the Sorrow and the Pity in Annie Hall  Monica Vitti   I'm funny how? in Goodfellas Umberto D  Once Upon a Time in Anatolia  Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence Polanski's gorgeous Tess starring the gorgeous Natasha Kinski   You're going to need a bigger boat   The Passion of Joan of Arc Roma: Open Citti  Rufus T Firefly Wolf T Flywheel J Cheever Loophole Otis B Driftwood Quincy Adams Wagstaff  Dr. Hackenbush S Quentin Quale Taking Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan  Christmas Eve in Fanny and Alexander  Angels watching over Berlin in Wings of Desire Two men drinking milk and talking in Inglourious Basterds  Ossie Davis saying 'you've got to do the right thing'  The shrinking jury room in 12 Angry Men   Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper tearing it 

up in Silver Linings Playbook   Sunset Blvd. Claudette Colbert  The brave pacifism of All Quiet on the Western Front  Bull Durham  Jules et Jim  It's A Wonderful Life a Christmas staple  The road trip in Y Tu Mama Tambien The long shots in Grapes of Wrath  A Sea of umbrellas in Foreign Correspondent  Investigation of a Citizen Beyond Suspicion The transformation of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day Cinemaphotographers: Haskell Werner Gordon Willis Gregg Toland Sven Nykvist Vittora Storaro Robert Richardson Vilmos Zsigmond Jack Cardiff Robert Burks Kazuo Miyagawa The key in Notorious Duck Soup Isaac Davis railing about intellectuals in Manhattan Red Desert  I am Spartacus!  The car chase (of course) in Bullitt  Rosebud A woman saying goodbye to her lover going off to battle in The Big Parade The Exorcist Every second of Heaven's Gate The Emigrants and The New Land La Haine Olivier as Hamlet and as Richard III  The dance scene in Band of Outsiders Akira Kurosawa  Holden says 'let's go' in the Wild Bunch Melville's brilliant debut Silence De Lar Mer  Bonnie & Clyde reimagines cinema  The Stunning Stefania Sandrelli in I Knew Her Well  Bogie goes mad in Treasure of the Sierra Madre Joan Blondell Rushmore The starkness of The Last Picture Show The best of pre code from William Wellman: Wild Boys of the Road and Heroes for Sale  The ultimate musical A Hard Day's Night Buster Keaton's The General  Sullivan's Travels Jeanne Moreau walking in the rain in Elevator to the Gallows  Attica! Attica! Cate Blanchett Ice Storm Fred & Ginger dancing cheek to cheek Intertwining stories by Altman in Nashville Gosford Park and Short Cuts  Diane Keaton The doubting pastor in Winter Light  Matti Pellonpaa and Kati Outinen sharing screen time Paths of Glory Jean Harlow Max von Sydow  Zodiac: the soundtrack, the re-creation of 70s SF, the cast  Anna Magnani in anything but especially Mamma Roma Germano Maccioni a directing star on the rise Early 1900s New York in Godfather Part 2  Match Point  Wes Anderson's casts Elizabeth Taylor  The storms of Take Shelter The ending and all of Personal Shopper La Dolce Vita