Inversion Therapy

"I do not mean to suggest this was a conversion of convenience. I wanted to believe."-- Reza Aslan, Newshour damage control candidate

William Holden was before my time. Why he is a Hollywood celeb is beyond my comprehension, in much the same way that Miley Cyrus might be Tralfamadorian. It is solely due to Kathleen Parker that I gather Miley is a soft pornography performer, and I wail, too young to be in the generation gap, but here we are. It seems Holden's one and only elevation is against Bogart and beautiful Audrey. Audrey Hepburn transcends stardom. Looking at her face, I may not want to believe in God, but can understand why we have angels dance. Holden only confirms my tendency toward nihilism; hated Earthling when it recollected my youth. The man is not an actor, and this makes me rapacious, willing to drown Sri Lanka so that Kwai exists as a CinemaScope travesty. Guinness had a good death in Kwai, but Alec Guinness actually has theatrical force, much like Simon Schama.

I do not care to read Rough Crossings, but I am thinking of Schama's recognition of the dialectical tensions between Britain and the US on liberalism, because it can be seen in the majority of the twentieth films between the last imperial power and its fabulous offspring, and I half toy with the idea of contacting Schama and saying I need a fucking vocabulary mate, hey, help a cripple out dear boy. But why would he assist me? Pounding my fist, I see it, trying to encapsulate it, but it's difficult, a heterodoxy between the glamour of Hannibal and the documentary ruthlessness of 10 Rillington Place. Attenborough's Christie triggers memories of my assault, and frightens me more than Michael Rooker in Portrait, despite the realism of Henry's alienated outside status as a predator. 

Marie the aunt tells me to forget the Brandon Phillips who nearly killed me but I cannot; he lives in every sexual assault I experienced before or since, and this inner city brawn boy minority coward whose grandmother was a Presby tenant on the floor above me may one day make me famous, unpacking every middle brow Catholic girl's worst nightmare, I know the terror of Christie's victims, as well as the bemusement over Aslan's kerfuffle. Academics can also be pandering hacks, and this will be a scab I may pick for some time to come.

I would not have posed the question the way Lauren Green did, but the Newshour is also guilty of bias over the Zealot fiasco. Propping up Aslan was more important to the PBS team than being objective in terms of the quality of the text. Green was actually challenging Aslan's doubt, whether or not her interrogative stance was an unfair blow to his integrity. Remind me that I am pushing myself too hard for my age, and that I cannot live on maple walnut brownies, but I have fallen in love, not with William Holden.