By Jonny Walls
A hypothetical question: What if I came home one day and declared to my wife that "Blade II is my favorite movie"? Would she think I had become crazy? Probably not. After all, having Blade II as one's favorite movie is not a crazy thing to do. But then again, my wife knows me, and she knows that Blade II is not my favorite movie, and could never be. At least, the "me" that she really knows, or thinks she knows, would never choose Blade II as his favorite film. It's simply not in his (that is to say, "my") character.
She would assume I was joking. Besides, I've never even seen Blade II.
But what if I insisted, without a hint of twinkle or jest in my eyes, that Blade II had indeed, for no apparent reason, ascended to the throne of my personal movie kingdom? What if I became angry and rude when she refused to believe me? What if I spoke of nothing for the rest of the day, but my adoration for Blade II. Let's say she knows that I haven't taken drugs, I haven't suffered brain injury, that I am functioning completely normally in every other way imaginable.
My wife knows I like to joke, and she knows I've never even seen Blade II. Pure logic would lead her, once again, to believe that it was a prank. But then again, she knows that a joke of this nature, carried on without a trace of irony for that long, is also out of my character.
But what if she came home next day to find our apartment walls covered with Blade II posters? What if, in the backyard, she found the charred remains of Coppolla's Bramstoker's Dracula DVD, all of the Underworld DVD's, and the Twilight DVD's? What if, that evening at dinner, I built a to-scale replica of Wesley Snipes out of mashed potatoes? What if I became grumpy and left the table to sulk in my room when she criticized my poor craftsmanship and told me that the real Wesley would be embarrassed by this sad attempt at starchy immortalizing?
You see where I'm going with this? At what point does my wife dismiss what she thought she absolutely knew and instead accept a new paradigm of reality?
What if she opened up our DVD case, expecting to find It Happened One Night among our diverse DVD collection, only to find hundreds of copies of Blade II, and nothing else? What if I legally changed my name to Blade?
Movie characters are constantly faced with improbable situations and often react with stubborn disbelief. Think of Neo in the Matrix, or Demi Moore in Ghost. I constantly find myself on the side of truth, wondering how the unbelieving protagonists could be so mulish in the face of such compelling evidence.
"Ditto, Demi! Ditto!"
I often envision myself in their position, accepting the truth with the enlightened wisdom that only an outsider watcher in a theater can attain. But maybe, if the tables were turned, it would take just as much convincing and time in denial for me as it does for them.
Capable of Kidnapping?
Recently Emily and I were visiting my Dad in San Francisco, who had flown in for a conference, and the three of us spent the day with our good friend (and Verbal Infusion guest poster) Phil Tallon. Phil was staying with his dad, who lives about thirty minutes outside of the city, so we gave him a ride to his pop's before heading back to L.A. at the end of the night. As I am wont to do, I blindsided Phil with the following hypothetical: What if I sped past your exit and started driving south toward L.A? At what point would you actually start to be afraid, or at least think something was seriously amiss?
It turns out Phil is a tough nut to crack. He simply refused to admit that he would ever believe me capable of true malice or danger. He would not accept that I could somehow not be the person he's known for years.
We upped the stakes.
"What if you started asking questions and telling us we missed the exit, and asked us repeatedly to turn around, and we all ignored you. No explanation, no interaction or acknowledgement of your presence, just silence, all the way to L.A?"
"I would assume it was an elaborate and well planned prank."
"But you have important things to do tomorrow: meetings, flights to catch soon, daughters and a wife waiting back home. What kind of person would do that to someone in your position?"
"I would consider it a highly inconsiderate, elaborate prank."
"What if I actually cut you with a knife?"
"Are you going to cut me with a knife?"
"No."
"Exactly. It's not in your character."
It was my assumption that a stunt like this would at least cause bewilderment, if not fear. But Phil insists that he would stick to his guns of hard knowledge. He knows what he knows, and anything in seeming disharmony with hard truth must be made to fall in line, one way or another.
The Drive-Thru Splasher Strikes Again
When I was in high school, I had a friend who would go to drive-thru windows, order a water, take the water from the employee's hands, yank off the top, splash the water into the employee's face, and then drive away laughing. I never did this myself, but I certainly never stopped him, and I laughed every time I was in the passenger seat.
I am aware that this was a cruel thing to do, but it did open one little window onto a special corner of life that goes oft unnoticed. At first it was hard to pin down exactly what it was, but as I thought on it more, I figured it out. When that water would hit those poor, underpaid employees' faces, we would witness a moment of true shock, of true humanity. Every layer of presupposition, every mask and ego, would drip away in that one instant of wide-eyed bewilderment. We would catch these people truly unaware. We were doing something they absolutely never expected, and it was kind of amazing. Those tiny glimpses are rare, and they're usually all we get of bare, untainted humanity, but they're worth catching.
Rare though they may be, those stripped, uncorrupted humans are still down there somewhere in every person, under the layers of expectation and habit and game-faces and work personas and social norms. Those people down there wouldn't have trouble accepting anything, if the evidence pointed that way.
Sometimes, even often, our knowledge and deductive skills lead us correctly. A well placed axiom serves as a fine barrier between ourselves and some truly slippery slopes. It's not about killing the idea of knowledge, but rather, opening the door for it. Somewhere along the line, we tend to lose the ability to expect wonder. To expect surprise. To expect miracles. To let them in.
There is an infinite universe that can't be comprehended, so would it really be that shocking if Blade II became my favorite film? No, it wouldn't.
But still, not gonna happen.
By Jonny Walls
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