My Perfect Moment with Wallace Shawn

For some reason, last night, I found myself thinking about Wallace Shawn. Sometime back in the early 90s, I had to walk across campus to pick up some software. I was strolling down the sidewalk, headed west on Iowa Avenue by the English-Philosophy building. It was spring or fall, a bit crisp, maybe a breeze now and then. Someone was walking along the sidewalk toward me. I was enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine, not really paying attention to whoever it might be, when suddenly, I realized I knew who this guy was. It was Wallace Shawn.

I'd seen Wallace Shawn in movies and TV shows, among them The Princess Bride and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I enjoyed his quirky characterizations, the zaniness he always brought to his roles. I remembered him most from My Dinner with Andre, one of my favorite movies. I admired the courage it must have taken to write and star in a movie about two men talking over dinner, and the talent it took to make a great movie about a conversation between two people, with no action, no change of scene, no other characters. This was not just some U of I student or professor walking toward me. This was Wallace Shawn!

As the distance between us decreased, I could feel my mouth curling into a little smile. The Grand Nagus Zek! Vizzini! Right here, in front of me! Headed toward me! Looking at me! My face broke into a huge grin. And as Wallace Shawn saw the smile on my face grow and grow, a small smile sprouted on his face, and as we approached each other, it too enlarged, until we were two smiles walking toward each other on the sidewalk by Iowa Avenue.

And suddenly, he was beside me, and then we kept on walking, him eastward, me westward. I took a few more steps, maybe twenty feet more, and stopped and turned. And there was Wallace Shawn, who also had stopped and turned. We looked at each other for a moment, each of us grinning ear to ear. Maybe I nodded, maybe he gave me a short wave.

And then I turned again and walked on.

I've always thought about this moment. I've had a few other brushes with celebrity or near-celebrity. I was waiting for the bus one winter day when Al McGuire and Billy Packer, the college basketball announcers, walked by. McGuire was relaxed, smiling, approachable, comfortable with the looks he was drawing from everyone. But Packer had this nasty glare that seemed to have "restraining order" written all over it. Once, at a party, I got a beer for Linus Torvalds, the guy who developed Linux.

But this moment with Wallace Shawn was different, pregnant, ripe. I sometimes wonder, what if I had walked back toward him? What if I had said something? Whole universes germinate and grow from this soil: Wallace Shawn inviting me to dinner. Wallace Shawn asking me to read something he's writing. Wallace Shawn inviting me to New York. Wallace Shawn mentioning me on a talk show.

But there was something about that moment that was perfect, just as it was, just as it always will be. My perfect moment with Wallace Shawn.

Idiotes and Idiocracy

I recently finished reading Peter Green's The Hellenistic Age: A Short History. Peter is my neighbor, and I could hear his voice as I read. Even though I have little background in ancient history, the book was very accessible, while also providing references to further study. The history of the ancient world post-Alexander and pre-Roman Empire has always been one of those muddled-to-blank spots in my own understanding of the past, which Peter's book helped fill in.

One interesting tidbit I learned is that idiot is derived from the Greek idiotes, which originally referred to a person who did not participate in the political or public life of the polis, or Greek city-state--in other words, someone who lived an individual life, unconcerned with larger affairs. Apparently, the Greeks looked back at the classical era as a golden age in which people were involved in civic affairs, and they viewed the development of the individual as decadent. In The Hellenistic Age, Peter speculates as to a possible link between the development of literature and the development of the individual.

Some time ago, I watched Idiocracy, a movie by Mike Judge. In the movie, the citizens of the United States have devolved into idiocy in the modern sense--the average IQ has plummeted. Perhaps self-referentially, the movie seems to associate this devolution with the rise of interactive, omnipresent, commercial entertainment and its penetration into every aspect of life. In the world of Idiocracy, the citizen is very involved in public life via something like our current representational democracy, unlike the idiote of the Hellenistic Age. But it's a very simple-minded, game show or reality TV type of involvement.

It's an interesting and maybe frightening exercise to compare Idiocracy to the current state of affairs in the U.S., where political talk shows more closely resemble pro-wrestling theatrics than real debate. Every issue is presented in terms of two very simplified, opposing points of view. You simply find out which team supports which point of view, and then you root for your team. News media, entertainment, politics and commercialism all seem to be converging, and I wonder how long it will be before our elected officials wear the labels of their big-money sponsors, like NASCAR drivers.

Ironically, anyone who does not participate in the two-party system is seen as at least eccentric or odd. Independents are fickle, the fans who root for whoever is ahead. Third parties are spoilers, the non-BCS teams in the bowl playoff system of big-time politics. Those who don't vote at all--the majority of the electorate--are lazy, unpatriotic, uncaring--modern-day idiotes. But maybe we're beginning to reach the point where a thoughtful person might suspect that the current two-party, megamoney political bloodsport leaves little room for intelligent participation. Maybe the idiotes of today are not idiots, after all.

Helpless

I've always loved this Neil Young song. My wife and I saw Away from Her recently, and I loved K. D. Lang's version, too, which is on the soundtrack. The song speaks to me about the human condition, my condition, about how we like to feel we're in charge of our lives, of life, we like to feel in control, but in reality, we aren't, and there is beauty in that, along with the pain. The movie seems to be about all that, too, about having to face our own mortality, our own helplessness. The movie is about an extremely heart-wrenching, painful situation, a man having to come to terms with the fact of his wife's Alzheimer's disease. And in showing the painful truth, the movie is simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful. I've titled this blog Helpless, because I like the song, and because that's how I feel, and it feels all right, it feels alive, to be aware that I am helpless.