My last afternoon in New York was a quiet one, or so I intended. The Frick Art Gallery, tucked into Henry Clay Frick’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, is a sanctuary from the city, and I had come to see the Vermeers. But as often happens in great museums, my feet led me away from the popular rooms toward a smaller, dimly lit alcove dedicated to works of attribution.
The piece itself was small, a single panel, but the quality was undeniable. It was clearly Italian, perhaps Florentine, circa 1505. The texture of the paint, the specific sfumato effect on the skin tones, and the deep, rich pigments—that distinct Renaissance blue and the vibrant velvet—spoke of a master. Yet the brass plaque beneath it read: Unknown Painter.
When I raised my eyes to the composition, it was as if the room had suddenly shifted. It wasn’t just a shock; it was a physical sensation of disorientation.
I stood before a double portrait. The figures, captured in that precise moment of the 16th century, were seated closely. One was a figure with long, flowing silver hair and a full, neatly kept beard, wearing a cream-colored doublet. The other, a woman with voluminous, dark cascading curls, was dressed in a sumptuous velvet robe. Her arm was draped around his neck, and her hands rested over his chest, adorned with a collection of rings and an ornate, decorative chain bracelet that the artist had captured in meticulous detail.
I knew those faces. I knew the specific lines around the man’s smile, the gentle but direct gaze in the woman’s brown eyes, and even the unique curvature of her nose. I knew them with an intimacy that a history textbook or even a photo gallery couldn’t provide. I pulled my smartphone from my pocket and navigated to my photo roll.
I scrolling through recent images and selected a picture from the image_0.png file—the portrait of me and Robin.
There was no mistake. It was beyond likeness. The artist, painting five hundred years ago, had rendered the identical, specific features of our faces. The contours, the proportions, and the subtle, individual expressions had been painted with such precision that it defied mere coincidence. I looked back and forth, from the image_0.png file in my palm to the painting on the Frick’s wall.
The sensation was not just uncanny; it was time-altering. To see our own visages, so familiar and immediate, rendered as a priceless, centuries-old masterwork, felt like having a dream of someone and then meeting them in an ancient, sun-dappled courtyard. Robin would never believe me. The painting was not a mirror; it was a revelation of continuity I wasn’t prepared to receive. I snapped a photo of the unknown Renaissance double portrait, the Frick plaque below it, and my own hand holding the reference photo from image_0.png next to the canvas. I would need every bit of proof.
SETTING: A dive bar in the tourist town of Chihuahua, Mexico
TIME: The present
CHARACTERS:
Old Man, in his 70s
Pepe, a waiter, in his 30s
Tito, another waiter, in his 60s
Maria, barmaid, in her 20s
Joe, a tourist, is in his 50s
Ron, a tourist, in his 60s
Cora, a tourist, in her 60s
Opening: OLD MAN is sitting at a table outside of The Last Chance Saloon. He is reading a book in the light of the afternoon sun and sipping a drink. There is a large plate-glass window that allows us to see inside the Saloon. There are two waiters, one old and one young, hovering inside waiting for the old man to go. The old man signals the waiters for another drink. The younger waiter saunters over.
PEPE
What will you have?
OLD MAN
Another whisky and soda.
PEPE
Don’t you think you’ve had enough, señor?
The OLD MAN just looks at him. PEPE goes inside to the bar, pours a shot of bourbon into a tumbler of ice, and spritzes it with soda water. He carries the drink outside to where the OLD MAN is sitting and places it in front of him.
PEPE
Why don’t you just fuck off, old man?
PEPE goes back inside to huddle with his workmate at a table near the door.
OLD MAN
He probably thought I couldn’t hear what he was saying, as I am practically deaf. But I hear well enough in a quiet environment.
The two waiters huddle together at a table, whispering to each other.
OLD MAN
Probably talking about me. They probably want me to go. They think I’m drunk and need to leave. Well, I’m not ready to go yet. I like this place. It is clean, well-lighted, and quiet. I like to read here in the afternoons and pass the time. Oh, well, I’ll stay a little longer and have one more for the road.
OLD MAN motions to the waiters for another drink. PEPE crosses downstage to the table where OLD MAN is sitting.
OLD MAN
Another whiskey and soda, amigo.
PEPE
No. You’re done. Time to go.
OLD MAN
(slamming his empty tumbler on the table.)
Another!
.
PEPE
We are closing now.
PEPE begins to wipe the table with his towel. OLD MAN slowly rises to his feet. He is a bit unsteady. He pulls some cash from his pocket and throws it on the table. He turns and begins slowly walking downstage as the waiters stare after him.
TITO
He probably doesn’t want to go home to an empty apartment. He lost his wife last year. And did you hear about his daughter?
PEPE
No. What about his daughter?
TITO
He found her in her bedroom and had to cut her down.
PEPE
He has the smell of death on him.
Instantly, the lights snap off. Strobe lights activate for a few seconds, then a lone spotlight on the OLD MAN at the edge of the stage. He freezes, then closes his eyes, takes a sharp breath, and raises his hands to his neck. We hear the sudden crack of a wooden chair kicking over, immediately followed by a thick rope pulling taut under the weight, and a harsh, choked gasp of air cuts off abruptly. Blackout.
Scene 2.
Later that night. In the darkness, there is music emanating from a jukebox, but it is playing in a warped, slowed-down version at half speed. A harsh beam of white light penetrates the center of the stage, illuminating an open doorway. The OLD MAN stumbles through the doorway as if propelled from behind, clutching his throat and gasping for air. As he steps into the bar, the music immediately returns to normal. Light up on the interior of The Last Chance Saloon.
Hanging on one wall is a Mexican flag, and on the other wall is an American flag. Upstage Center is a bar with a pretty barmaid behind it. There are mirrors behind the bar and a sign above the mirrors that reads Last Chance Saloon. JOE, a tourist, is sitting on a barstool in the middle of the bar. He is frozen mid-sip, like a statue, until the OLD MAN takes his first steps toward the bar, at which point JOE suddenly comes to life and drinks.
The music fades out as the OLD MAN winces, rubs his throat, and swallows with difficulty. He sits a couple of stools down from JOE and tries to catch his breath.
MARIA
(Smiling warmly as if she had been waiting for him)
Buenas noches, señor. You made it just in time.
OLD MAN
Did I?
MARIA
Of course. Most people don’t get a last chance. What can I get for you?
OLD MAN
Do you have any bourbon?
MARIA
Sí, we have Jim Beam.
OLD MAN
OK. I’ll have that.
MARIA pours the drink, marks it on the bottle, and sets it before the OLD MAN. She then walks back to her perch to resume her conversation with JOE, but he turns to the OLD MAN and starts to speak.
JOE
Hey! Where are you from?
OLD MAN
From the States.
JOE
Well, I figured that. Where in the States?
OLD MAN
Kentucky.
JOE
Kentucky! Ha! Bluegrass country! I heard it was the land of fast women and beautiful horses! That right?
OLD MAN
Yeah, we got some pretty women there.
JOE
Well, you are a long way from home, hombre. I’m from Oregon, myself. You been here before?
OLD MAN
Yeah, I live here now.
JOE
A lot of ex-pats here, that’s for sure! I guess that’s why they call it “Gringo Land.” Say, what brings you here south of the border? Trouble at home? You running from the law? Embezzle company funds? Personally, I’d like to think you killed someone.
OLD MAN
I came here for the waters.
JOE
Waters? Hell, there ain’t no water here! This is the middle of a desert!
OLD MAN
Well, I guess I was misinformed.
JOE laughs out loud. He has a bottle of beer in front of him and a shot of tequila. He downs the tequila and chases it with the beer.
JOE
You’ve been watching too many movies, Old Man!
OLD MAN
Seriously, though, I came to Mexico for her great beauty, her delicious margaritas and mojitos, and her spicy food. It is a land of revolution and rebels, like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Viva Zapata!
OLD MAN raises his drink and kills it.
JOE
You’ve been reading too many books, too, amigo.
OLD MAN
Why did you come to Mexico, señor?
JOE
Me? Vacation! The missus and I come down here every year in October and stay for a month. We love the weather, the food, and best of all, the prices. We’ll be leaving at the end of the month after the big celebration.
OLD MAN
Celebration?
JOE
You know, the Day of the Dead.
OLD MAN
Oh yes! How could I forget? Día de Muertos.
JOE
Yeah, it’s a pretty big deal here in Chihuahua. Parades, marching bands, and everything.
OLD MAN
Yes, it is. I may have to miss it this year.
JOE
What else do they do in Kentucky? You ever do any hunting when you lived there?
OLD MAN
Sí, when I was a young man, I would hunt squirrels and rabbits with my grandfather’s 12-gauge shotgun.
JOE
Ugh! Squirrels. They ain’t nothing but a tree rat. You ever eat a rat?
OLD MAN
No, señor, I’ve eaten some squirrels, but I never ate a rat.
JOE
Why not? What’s the difference?
OLD MAN
A rat is a filthy animal.
JOE
Probably tastes just the same.
OLD MAN
I doubt it. Might taste like cherry pie on Friday night, but I’ll never know because I wouldn’t eat the filthy creature. You know, Mexico City is crawling with rats. The last time I was there, I saw one sunning himself by a swimming pool. And another one was looking at me from the window ledge of a sidewalk café while I was eating. It was as long as my right arm. Truly frightening. No señor, I would never eat a rat.
JOE
Hahaha! I’m just messing with you, Old Man! I wouldn’t eat a rat or a squirrel. I’m a venison man myself. We have big game up in Oregon. Deer, elk, Big Horn Sheep. You can hunt bear and cougar, too, if you’re looking for a little excitement. Got me a black bear last year.
OLD MAN
I don’t hunt anymore, señor. I’ve lost my taste for killing. When I was a young man, I was hunting one day on my grandfather’s farm in Kentucky. I had his single-shot 12-gauge shotgun in my possession. As I came around a corner, I spotted a groundhog sitting on top of a fence post outside the granary. I froze in my tracks and brought the gun up to my shoulder. I drew a bead on the animal and cocked the hammer on the gun. My finger tightened on the trigger as I took a deep breath. I was letting it out, ready to shoot, but a curious thing happened. I began to think about that groundhog, and how he was a familiar figure around the farm and beloved by my family. The groundhog had done nothing to me, so why should I kill this animal? I knew my family would be unhappy with me if I shot it. My finger slowly relaxed on the trigger, and I released the hammer on the gun and lowered it to my side. In that instant, the groundhog leaped off the fence post and ran away. It was at that moment that I learned a powerful lesson. The lesson of mercy. It is far more powerful to grant a life than to take one. Ever since then, I gave up hunting.
There is a pause while OLD MAN’S speech sinks in. Then suddenly…
JOE
Well, pardon me all to hell!
OLD MAN
No need to apologize. No offense taken. Killing and dying. It’s all the same to me. You’re just as alone. And just as dead.
MARIA (looking at OLD MAN)
Do you want to play a game?
OLD MAN
What kind of game?
MARIA
It’s called Dead Man’s Bluff. You roll the dice. There are three winners. One who calls the shot. One who pays, and one who drinks the shot. Do you want to play?
OLD MAN
Sure, why not? Let’s play!
They each take a turn and roll 6 or 7 dice out onto the bar top from a leather cup. Each time MARIA counts the tops of the dice. OLD MAN wins the first round.
MARIA
What shot do you want?
OLD MAN
What are you drinking?
MARIA
Don Julio
OLD MAN
OK. That’s what I want.
MARIA pours out a shot of tequila and sets it on the bar. She downs the shot. JOE throws some pesos onto the bar. They roll again. This time, MARIA calls the shot.
MARIA
I call Jim Beam.
MARIA pours a shot of Jim Beam and sets it on the bar.
JOE
I’ll drink to that!
JOE downs the shot of bourbon. OLD MAN pays. They roll one more time. This time, JOE calls the shot.
JOE
Don Julio again!
OLD MAN shoots the shot, and MARIA pays. They all laugh.
JOE
All right! I have had about all of this I can stand! I have to meet my wife at the Hotel Victoria. We are going on a tequila factory tour in the morning, and we have to be up bright and early.
OLD MAN
Good night, señor. Maybe I’ll see you around the town square.
JOE finishes his drink, climbs off his stool, and saunters out of the bar. MARIA crosses to the table where the other couple is sitting.
MARIA walks away to fetch the drinks. During the ensuing dialog, OLD MAN sips his bourbon and stares at Ron and Cora.
RON (Cont.)
You know, there were a lot of human lizards slithering around last night at El Chameleon’s. Best damn dive bar in Chihuahua.
CORA
Really? Did we go there? I don’t remember!
RON
Yes, we did. You probably can’t remember because you were in a deep conversation with Captain Morgan.
CORA
I remember you taking me home, but I couldn’t remember the name of that bar. I didn’t think it was a dive. Kinda cute! And that hot little Mexican girl thought you were kinda cute too! Did you ever find her again?
The light shifts and the club gets quiet for a moment. RON looks over at OLD MAN. They make eye contact.
RON
No. Trust me. It’s a dive. A nice dive, but a dive. Just like this place here. The Last Chance Saloon. The end of the line. Davy Jones’ Locker. The place where hopes and dreams come to die. Look around. You see anyone here that gives a damn? (He raises his drink in mock salute to OLD MAN) They got nothing to worry about because there’s no place lower they can go. (back to normal) Besides, I was more interested in you than in her.
CORA
Come on, Ron. You know I don’t think of you that way.
He reaches out to touch CORA’S arm. She recoils in disgust.
RON
Yeah, but I wish you did.
CORA
Now, don’t start that again. Truth and illusion, Ron. You don’t seem to know the difference.
RON
Yeah, well, it seems to be a universal problem, doesn’t it? It’s all a dream, and we are all delusional. Nothing is real. You know, like that old Beatles song, Strawberry Fields.
CORA
I don’t remember. I was always more of a Stones girl, if you know what I mean.
RON
Yeah, I think I catch your drift…Didn’t you tell me one time you fucked Mick Jagger?
CORA
Hell, I fucked the whole band! My boss sent me to buy tickets, but they were sold out. So, we struck a deal. Tit for tat. Quid pro quo! Four tickets for four lays. It was a peak moment, I might add. I’ve been a Stones fan ever since.
RON
Yeah, sort of ruined the whole Rolling Stones thing for me, you know what I mean? I can’t listen to a Stones song anymore without thinking about you and Mick Jagger getting it on. So, what is your favorite Stones song anyway?
CORA
Wild Horses.
RON
Wild Horses.
CORA
Mm hm.
RON
Why Wild Horses?
CORA
Because I love horses. When I was a little girl, we used to have horses on our farm back in Tennessee, and I rode all the time. Up until the time I discovered boys. Then I started riding boys.
RON
You know, I’m starting to get a complex. You fuck everybody but me. Mick Jagger, the boys in the band, your high school football team, and what about that guy last night? What was his name?
CORA
Miguel.
RON
Miguel! That’s it! What about me? I’m not good enough for you?
CORA
It’s not that, Ron. I just don’t think of you that way. I think of you more like a brother. And you know how I feel about my brother.
RON
Yeah, that freeloading piece of shit. I’m nothing like him!
CORA
No, you’re not. I’m just not physically attracted to you, that’s all. Can’t you understand that?
RON
Yeah, I get it. I just don’t know why I’m wasting my time with you, is all.
CORA
Well, if you feel that way about it, why don’t we just get the hell out of here? Take me back to the hotel.
MARIA brings them their drinks, sets them on the table, and collects their empties. She takes the empties back behind the bar.
RON
All right, I’m sorry. Truth be told, I’d rather have you as a friend than not have you at all. Let’s just finish our drinks and change the subject. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Johnny Cash?
CORA
Yeah, every time you get drunk!
RON
Did I get on your last nerve yet?
CORA (softly)
Getting there.
RON
What?
CORA (raising her voice)
I said yes!
RON
You know, sometimes you drop your voice, and I can’t hear what you are saying.
OLD MAN reacts by touching his ear and wincing.
CORA (Raising her voice higher)
I don’t drop my voice! And your doctor is an asshole!
RON
All right! You don’t drop your voice.
CORA
Sometimes I just get quiet, that’s all.
OLD MAN chuckles to himself and takes a slow sip of bourbon, and lets the line hang over him for a beat.
RON
That’s right, baby. Sometimes you just get quiet.
Silence. Crossfade to MARIA and OLD MAN
MARIA (to OLD MAN)
What’s your name, Gringo?
OLD MAN
Philip. Most people just call me Old Man.
MARIA
You don’t look so old to me. You look like you take pretty good care of yourself. Is that right? Do you take care of yourself? I bet you have a whole lot of life left in you yet, old timer!
OLD MAN
Yeah, I try to stay in shape. You never know when you might need your body to perform, you know what I mean? I’m not as strong as I used to be, but I know a lot of tricks. But lately,
to tell the truth, I have been feeling pretty washed up. I don’t have much left to live for anymore. Just waiting around to die.
MARIA
Aw, don’t say that. I bet you have lots to live for.
OLD MAN
Not really.
MARIA
What about family?
OLD MAN
My wife died of lung cancer last year, and my daughter just committed suicide.
MARIA
Oh, I am sorry to hear that. You must be very sad. But what about friends? Don’t you have any friends?
OLD MAN
A few. Not many. Honestly, I prefer my solitude. I miss my daughter and my wife. I have always said you cannot live without love. But solitude is independence. It is cold and vast, like the cold vastness of outer space.
MARIA
It sounds lonely.
OLD MAN
It’s not really. I like sitting and reading my book of an afternoon and having a drink by myself. Preferably someplace that’s quiet and well-lighted. That’s why I came to Mexico in the first place. To get away from people I knew and all the old familiar places. I feel more at home here in Mexico than I ever did back in the States.
MARIA
What does that even mean? That doesn’t make any sense.
OLD MAN
Well, it’s like this. I have never felt that I fit in anywhere. It was like I was always a stranger in a strange land. Constantly on the go, always the new guy in class or the new boy in town. When I first came to Mexico, it was so different from my life back home, so alien, that I felt right at home. That strangeness, that sense of alienation, was a familiar feeling. I love walking alone
along these streets of cobblestone. This is where I feel most comfortable. This is where I want to live, and this is where I want to die.
MARIA
The way you talk, señor. You sound like a poet. Are you perhaps a writer?
OLD MAN
Used to be. I stopped writing when Cassandra died.
MARIA
Cassandra? Was that your wife’s name?
OLD MAN
Sí.
MARIA
Pretty name. You must have loved her very much.
OLD MAN
Sí. She was the light of my life. My raison d’etre, my muse, my inspiration, my everything. I have been with a lot of women, but she is the only one I truly wanted to be with. To be married to, I mean. I lost her once, but she came back to me only for me to lose her again. First, she came to me in my dreams, then she appeared one day on my doorstep. I told her one time after she had been back for a while, you know, you are the only one I ever wanted to be with, and she looked at me and she said, and you still can’t figure out why, can you? Well, you are my own sweet mystery, I answered. And she said, I’ll give you three reasons: First, destiny. Second, you still can’t figure me out. And third, you’ll never be bored for the rest of your life.
Well, she was right about that last part. I was never bored. She was right about the rest of it, too.
MARIA
She sounds like a very special person. I have the feeling she was beautiful, too.
OLD MAN
Yes, she was. Her eyes were like two jewels in the night. She had long, black, smooth hair that hung down to her waist, and I would pull it at night when we slept together. We would have a tug-of-war every night. She was my mysterious lady. My beautiful, mystical wife. She had the kind of beauty that calls forth a grief that is beyond imagination. The kind of beauty that starts wars or brings nations to their knees. There will be no other like her. She was the last of her kind. (beat) But, enough about me, let’s talk about you. What’s your name, anyway?
MARIA
Maria. At least that’s what I put on my Facebook page. You want another shot?
OLD MAN
No thanks. What’s your real name?
MARIA
That is my real name. I don’t know why I said that.
OLD MAN
I guess everybody is so busy being somebody else these days, they don’t have time to be themselves.
MARIA (laughs)
Are you sure you don’t want another drink? It’s on the house.
OLD MAN
OK. Why not? The day I turn down a drink will be the day they find me in the morgue.
MARIA pours a shot of tequila and sets it in front of OLD MAN. He downs it in one gulp.
OLD MAN (cont’d.)
So, how long have you worked here, anyway?
MARIA
Who me? I’m just working here for a friend. I know the owner. I’m just helping her out of a jam. You will usually find me down at El Chameleon’s. That’s where I mainly hang out. It’s a biker bar.
OLD MAN
I heard about that place. It’s out on the highway at the edge of town. It’s a little rough. Another dive bar like this place here, The Last Chance Saloon. Only, this place, this is the end of the line—this is where hopes and dreams come to die, isn’t what you said? You have nothing to worry about because there’s nothing left to lose and no place else to go.
MARIA
(Pours another shot of tequila and sets it down in front of OLD MAN)
Don’t be so desperate, Old Man. Tomorrow is a new day, and I am sure everything will look better to you in the morning.
OLD MAN
I don’t know. There’s nothing left to believe in anymore. And I don’t even know if there’s going to be another morning.
MARIA
Why do you say that?
OLD MAN
Because civilization is doomed.
MARIA
Wow! Getting heavy again. I think I might need a drink on that one. What makes you say that Old Man?
OLD MAN
Just look around you. Global Warming. Genocide. Wars and rumors of war. We live under a cloud of dread, fear, and loathing. The threat of thermonuclear war hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles.
MARIA (pouring herself a drink)
I don’t know. Things seem mighty peaceful around here to me. At least they did up until a few minutes ago. I don’t know anything about wars and rumors of war. Besides, what can we do about it?
OLD MAN
Nothing! That’s the point. The whole world is out of control. It’s upside down, inside out, and crazy on top. It’s a mad, mad, mad world. Do the words mutually assured destruction mean anything to you?
MARIA
No señor, I have no clue what you are talking about.
OLD MAN
Well, it’s like this. Russia has a bunch of nuclear-armed missiles aimed at us, and we have a bunch of missiles aimed at them. If one side fires, the other side will fire back. Both countries will be destroyed. Mutually assured destruction, so to speak. And if that happens, it will likely trigger a nuclear winter. You can say adios to the human race.
MARIA
¡Qué loco!
OLD MAN
Yeah, it’s crazy, all right! That’s why they call it MAD. I’ve pretty much lost my faith in humanity.
MARIA
Damn! Don’t you believe in anything?
OLD MAN
Damn is right! No, I really don’t. I believe in this right here, Jim Beam. Put a cold one in my hand. Like I said, man is doomed. Ever since I heard about the ovens of Auschwitz, I’ve abandoned all hope. Man’s dreams have gone up in smoke, just like the smoke in those chimneys.
MARIA
Now, what are you talking about? Are you sure that’s not the booze talking?
OLD MAN
No, it’s not the booze talking. Jim Beam is a friend of mine, and we go back a long way. Listen to this. In World War II, the Germans incinerated six million Jews as part of what they called the Final Solution.
MARIA
Oh yes! The so-called holocaust. Yes, we studied that in school. But señor, that is like ancient history to me. And we have our own problems here in Mexico.
OLD MAN
Nothing like that.
MARIA
No, but listen to this. A year ago, the cartel cut off the heads of six of their rivals and placed them on the highway just as you come into town to teach them a lesson and send out a message.
OLD MAN
Jesus! That’s gruesome! But it goes to prove my point. How can you live with that?
MARIA
I try not to think about it. It’s actually pretty unusual. Chihuahua is usually fairly calm and quiet. And I will not live in fear.
OLD MAN
No. That is no good. One shouldn’t live in fear. That’s why I drink, to take the edge off having to live another day in hell.
MARIA
But I do worry about los desaparecidos.
OLD MAN
The missing?
MARIA
Sí.
OLD MAN
You mean the missing girls of Juarez?
MARIA
Sí. Not just Juarez. All over Mexico. Wherever you have cartels, you have missing girls.
OLD MAN
You think it’s the drug lords who kidnapped the girls?
MARIA
Who else?
OLD MAN
Why do they kill them?
MARIA
Who knows? For fun. When you have more money than God and the moral depravity of a serial killer, what else do you do for kicks?
OLD MAN
Truly horrible. Man’s inhumanity never ceases to amaze me.
MARIA
I will remember one of the missing girls by dressing up as her and carrying a placard with her name in the Dia de Muertos parade.
OLD MAN
I have a friend in the States who is an artist. She makes paintings of these girls. What is the name of the girl you will honor?
MARIA
Silvia Morales.
OLD MAN
Silvia Morales?
MARIA
Sí.
OLD MAN
Do you believe in coincidence, Maria?
MARIA
I have heard of them, señor, but no, I don’t really believe in them.
OLD MAN
Neither do I. But I do believe in synchronicity. I connect the dots and look for patterns, and when I see them, I pay attention. They are like signposts guiding my way. And that is what ultimately led me here. To you. Tonight.
MARIA
What are you talking about?
OLD MAN
I have a picture of Silvia Morales in my apartment that was painted by my friend Diane Kahlo.
MARIA
Oh, sí, that is a coincidence, Old Man.
OLD MAN
You must let me march with you. I will carry the portrait of Silvia Morales in the parade while marching by your side.
MARIA
Sí. I think it is a good idea, señor. We will march together.
OLD MAN
We will do this in remembrance of the lost girls and to give them a voice.
MARIA
Sí. We must not forget them. They were seres humanos, just like you and me.
OLD MAN
Well, it’s settled then. I think now, I will take my leave. (Raising his glass to MARIA). I will go home. I will lie down in my bed and try to fall asleep. I am probably not the only one in town who has trouble sleeping at night. I will think of you, Maria, and I will see you in my dreams, where I will be a lot younger, and you will be even more beautiful if that’s possible, and we will make love under the willow trees. Maybe tomorrow I will find a place where I can sit and read in peace and wait for that big, long, last sleep. I will see you on the Day of the Dead.
MARIA
Good night, Old Man. Sweet dreams. Come back and see me before the parade.
OLD MAN
I will. You know, Maria, once I had a dream that I was a butterfly.
MARIA
¿A butterfly, señor?
OLD MAN
Sí. A butterfly. And ever since I had that dream, I always wondered: am I a man dreaming he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is a man?
MARIA
Well, what are you, Old Man? Are you a butterfly or a man?
OLD MAN
I don’t know, but I’ve got a crazy sensation that something’s not right. But if I am a butterfly, that must make you, Maria Flores.
MARIA
Hahaha! How did you know? I didn’t tell you.
OLD MAN
I don’t know. That’s how it works. See what I mean?
MARIA
Dios mio! I think I am beginning to understand.
Light slightly shifts
OLD MAN
I thought you might. Now I will say buenas noches. See you in my dreams.
OLD MAN climbs off his stool and slowly walks out of the bar. Beat. MARIA stands alone for a moment while the light shifts back, absorbing what just happened, then crosses over to CORA and RON.
MARIA
How are we doing over here, amigos? Can I get you anything else?
RON
What do you think, Cora? You want to stay for another one?
CORA
Sure, why not?
RON
Okay. Another round. Hey. Can I ask you a question?
MARIA
That is a question, señor. Do you have another one?
RON
Yes. I mean, sí. I mean, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?
MARIA
I don’t know, señor. Where do you think you might have seen me?
RON
At El Chameleon’s. Weren’t you there last night?
MARIA
Sí. But I don’t remember seeing you last night. Were you there?
RON
Yeah, we were both there. The band let me sit in with them for a few songs.
MARIA
Oh! That was you! Oh yes, I remember now. You have a nice voice.
RON
Thanks! Yeah, that’s one of my favorite places to go in Chihuahua. They have open mics on Thursdays.
MARIA
Mine too. The bartender is my ex and the father of my daughter. He sometimes lets me drink for free.
RON
Well, maybe I’ll see you down there sometime.
MARIA
Sí, maybe you will. I’ll get the drinks.
MARIA clears the table and heads back over to the bar to prepare the drinks.
CORA
Who knows? You might just get lucky.
RON
I’m not trying to get lucky. I was just trying to make conversation. Besides, she is way too young for me.
CORA
You never know. This is Mexico. Anything could happen.
RON
That’s true. That’s true.
Silence. MARIA brings the drinks over to the table.
MARIA
How long are you folks going to be in Mexico?
CORA
We are going to stay until after the celebration.
MARIA
Dia de Muertos?
CORA
The Day of the Dead. Yes. I understand it is a pretty big deal around here.
MARIA
Sí. A very big deal. As a matter of fact, I will be participating in the parade.
CORA
Oh really. What will you be doing?
MARIA
I will be one of the dead.
Silence
MARIA (cont.)
Well, enjoy your drinks. I will check on you later.
CORA
Did you hear that, Ron? She is going to be in the parade on the Day of the Dead.
RON
Yeah, I heard her. I can’t wait to see her in her costume. Probably be worth taking a picture.
CORA
Did you bring your camera?
RON
Yes, but I will probably just use my cell phone. It takes just as good pictures as my camera.
CORA
Better.
RON
How would you know? You couldn’t take a good picture if your life depended on it. Lord knows I have tried to teach you.
CORA (laughing)
I know, I know!
RON (Raising his glass)
A toast!
CORA (raises hers and they clink glasses.)
What are we drinking to?
RON
Here’s to the United States Constitution and confusion to her enemies!
CORA (laughing)
What’s that supposed to mean?
RON
I don’t know. Just some crazy shit I like to say.
They both drink.
CORA
Well, what do you want to do now, Ron?
RON
I dunno. I guess go back to the hotel and see what Nadine and Jeffery are doing.
CORA
Last I heard, they were fighting.
RON
What are they fighting about?
CORA
Oh, what do most married couples fight about? They both have such colossal egos they can’t even ride in the same car together. Nadine was so mad when they got to the hotel after they arrived from the airport, she threatened to go back home…in a taxi. Well, that didn’t work out.
When she finally calmed down, Jeffery came down to the lobby to retrieve her luggage and hauled it back up to their room. They decide to call a truce for the duration of the trip. I think they are going to see a Flamenco dancer tomorrow night at the Luna and Sol Hotel. You want to go?
RON
Maybe. Let me think about it. I’m not crazy about Flamenco dancers.
CORA
All right. Let me know. Meantime, let’s get out of here. This place is starting to give me the creeps. All that talk about being dead and all. What’s that about anyway?
RON
You mean The Day of the Dead?
CORA
Yeah.
RON
It’s a celebration in remembrance of the departed. It’s celebrated all over Mexico. People dress up, they have altars, and they prepare gifts and food for the dead.
CORA
All right. I get it. I’m just not crazy about the idea, though.
RON
All right, let’s go. I’ll pay the tab.
RON crosses to the bar where MARIA is and pays the tab. CORA gets up and gathers her things, and as they head for the exit, a shift in the light. They try the door, but it is locked, and they can’t get out. RON and CORA look at each other.
Fade to Black
Scene 3
The next afternoon. At Rise: In front of the Last Chance Saloon. OLD MAN is sitting at his table reading a book and having a drink. Pepe and Tito are huddling together at a table inside near the front. PEPE crosses over to where the OLD MAN is sitting.
I don’t know when I started talking to myself when I was alone. Sometime after Cassie died, I suspect. Oh well, I find that I am in good company when I am alone. Here I am again, sitting in this sad little café, reading my book… Yet, somehow, I just can’t shake the feeling that the time is all out of joint.
PEPE
Here you are, Old Man. You better drink it up quick, because we are about to get off work and we have to clean up.
OLD MAN
¡No problema, amigo! You just go and do what you have to do, and I will sit here and enjoy my drink and read my book.
PEPE
What are you reading, señor?
OLD MAN holds up the book for PEPE to inspect. PEPE takes the book, reads the title, and pages through it.
PEPE
The Divine Comedy. Where you are going, Old Man, I don’t think you will need your Dante.
PEPE hands the book back to OLD MAN and goes back inside. He and TITO begin to clean up and get ready to leave.
PEPE
That was quite a storm we had last night.
TITO
Sí, it was very scary—thunder and lightning. The ground shook, and fire fell from the sky. The graves in the old cemetery opened up and disgorged their dead.
PEPE
Yesterday I saw a mountain lion roaming the streets.
TITO
I heard the screeching of an owl in the outdoor market.
A short pause while they wipe tables.
PEPE (Looking over his shoulder)
Not a very good sign, amigo. And today we are supposed to have sandstorms.
TITO
If it gets any hotter, there will be another spontaneous combustion. And then there was the fire last night.
PEPE
Fire? What fire?
TITO
The Hotel Victoria. It burned to the ground. A total loss. No survivors.
PEPE
Aye yai yai! We better get out of here now, amigo, while the getting is good.
TITO
Sí. Before we both end up dancing at the end of a rope without music.
PEPE
When the chimes ring at midnight, the Day of the Dead will begin.
PEPE and TITO finish cleaning up and get ready to go.
OLD MAN
Those two are a couple of clowns. Well, I guess it’s time for me to go. I’ll come back later tonight to see Maria. I’m sure she’ll be here.
OLD MAN rises from his seat and throws some pesos onto the table. He slowly ambles off stage as the lights fade out. We hear the sounds of wind picking up and slowly fading with the light.
Scene 4
Later that night. A rise: We hear the sound of the wind howling outside, vibrating the shutters and the door. OLD MAN enters through the door and closes it behind him. He pushes his back against the door and holds it against the wind. The sound of the wind fades. On the jukebox, Hotel California is playing. MARIA is behind the bar, and RON and CORA are sitting at a table. OLD MAN crosses to the bar and takes a seat. Music fades.
MARIA
Buenas noches, señor. ¿Cómo estás esta noche?
OLD MAN
Not too bad, all things considered.
MARIA
Yeah, like what?
OLD MAN
Considering the utter futility of our existence in a meaningless and godless universe.
MARIA
Hijole! That is some serious stuff, amigo! Well, I think once again you have come to the right place. May I offer you something to drink to take the edge off?
OLD MAN
Sí, that would be nice.
MARIA
What would you like to have?
OLD MAN
Whisky. Do you have any Angel’s Envy?
MARIA
Oh no, señor, we haven’t had that spirit here since 1969. Long before I was born.
OLD MAN
Heaven’s Gate?
MARIA
No señor.
OLD MAN
Jack Daniel’s?
MARIA
Sí, we have Jack Daniel’s.
OLD MAN
Ok. I’ll have Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.
MARIA
Well, Ok, then! ¡Un momento, por favor!
MARIA turns to make the drink.
OLD MAN
It’s getting dark out…too dark to see. The Day of the Dead starts tomorrow. This is my last chance. Tomorrow I’ll be dead. Tomorrow she’ll be dead. Tonight, I shall cross over to the other side. If I am lucky, Maria will have my back and guide me across. Hand in hand, we will traverse the portal. Together we will go through the gates of hell and descend to the center of the earth. There we will meet the dark one who will flap his mighty wings and cause a powerful wind to rise. When hell freezes over, we will climb out of the pit and ascend the mountain. Once we reach the summit, I will find my wife and daughter waiting for me at the end of the world in Paradise.
MARIA turns around and sets a drink on the bar in front of OLD MAN
OLD MAN
Muchas Gracias.
MARIA
De nada. What have you been up to, Old Man?
OLD MAN
Not much. Same old, same old. Doing a little reading, trying to write. Contemplating the end of the universe. Will it end in a whimper or a bang? You know. That sort of thing.
MARIA
Well, how about a little music to cheer you up, Old Man? I have a little surprise for you. Something for you to think about and to raise your spirits.
OLD MAN
Sure, why not?
MARIA crosses to the jukebox to study the selections. She is bathed in the light of the machine. She is wearing tan shorts and a low-cut blouse and is gently swaying as she makes her selection. She inserts some coins and punches some buttons, and we hear the mechanical arm pick up the record, and the music begins to play. The jukebox presents a palpable presence, almost like a living entity. Maria selects Down in Mexico by the Coasters. She turns around and leans momentarily against the jukebox, then launches herself across the room towards OLD MAN. Then she begins an erotic dance as she gyrates across the floor, center stage. She has captured the attention of the others in the bar as they gather around to watch her dance. She gestures to the OLD MAN to join her. He hesitates. She crosses to him, still dancing, and pulls him off his stool. They dance a few bars, then she pushes him down in a chair and gives him a quasi-table dance. The dance proceeds for the duration of the song and leads to a spectacular finish with Maria ending by sitting on OLD MAN’S lap.
MARIA
How was that?
OLD MAN
Pretty damn spectacular!
MARIA laughs and leads OLD MAN back over to the bar, where they resume their conversation. The others go back to what they were doing.
CORA
Well, Ron, it looks like we’re stuck here. We might as well make the most of it.
RON
Yeah. At least we have plenty of spirits here to keep us company. You want another drink?
CORA
Sure. Why not?
RON
I’ll call Maria over. See if I can get her attention.
RON looks over in the direction of MARIA, who is at the bar talking to OLD MAN. He waves his hand at her. She notices out of the corner of her eye and crosses over to their table.
MARIA
Sí, señor. What can I get for you?
RON
What do you want, Cora?
CORA
Mm, I think I’ll have a Blackberry Mojito this time. Can you make one of those for me?
MARIA
Sí. That is our specialty. And for you, sir?
RON
I’ll just have a Jim Beam on the rocks.
MARIA heads back over to the bar to make the drinks.
CORA
I suppose Nadine must be mad at me.
RON
Nadine? Why?
CORA
When we were out dancing the other night, Jeffery asked me to dance to a slow one.
RON
So?
CORA
While we were dancing, he let his hand drift down to the crack of my ass.
RON
Why should she be mad at you about that?
CORA
I let it stay there.
Silence
CORA (cont.)
You know, Ron, there are three things women don’t share.
RON
Yeah, what’s that?
CORA
Our panties, our vibrators, or our men.
RON
Well, I’m glad to see that you have some principles.
CORA rolls her eyes
RON
Oh! An eye-roll! The first one tonight. What next, a drum roll?
CORA
What would you prefer? Knowing you, you would probably like a drum roll.
RON
A drum roll would be nice.
MARIA brings the drinks and clears the table.
CORA (yelling out)
Hey! Anybody want my pineapple?
RON
No. But I’ll take your cherry.
CORA
Sorry, Ron. Somebody got that a long time ago.
RON (fondling her neck)
You know, Cora, it looks like we might be here a long time.
CORA
Don’t touch me!
RON
Why not? I’ve had the hots for you a long time. I think now is our moment.
CORA
Oh, leave me alone, Ron!
RON (Throwing his hand up)
All right! All right! I just thought that since we will be spending eternity together, you might just have a change of heart.
CORA
Whatever do you mean?
RON
Don’t you get it yet, Cora? We are prisoners here. Prisoners of our own desire.
Silence
Just then, the wind picks up and blows the door open. In there steps Joe, from the other night. He has a demented and haunted look about him. He closes the door and holds it tight against the wind. He takes the handkerchief off his face and knocks the dust off his clothes.
JOE
It’s not fit for man nor beast out there!
OLD MAN
I thought you were going on a Tequila factory tour today.
JOE (Crossing to the bar)
We were, but it was canceled because of this sandstorm. We’re going to the bullfights tomorrow afternoon instead…if this storm ever lets up.
MARIA
What can I get you to drink, señor?
JOE
Beer and a shot!
MARIA
What beer and what shot?
JOE
Dos Equis and Don Julio!
MARIA turns to make the drinks. JOE sits on a stool beside OLD MAN.
OLD MAN
Bullfights, eh? I haven’t been to a bullfight in a long time.
JOE
Bullfights? You? I thought you said you lost your taste for killing.
OLD MAN
I did, but I never lost my fascination with death.
JOE
When was the last time you went to a bullfight, Old Man?
OLD MAN
I went to a bullfight in the place where they invented bullfighting.
JOE
Yeah? Where’s that?
OLD MAN
Spain. A few years back, I went to Pamplona for the Festival of St. Fermin. I’d always wanted to run with the bulls. Ever since I read that book by Hemingway, it appealed to the romantic in me, you might say. Finally got the chance, so I went.
JOE
Really? Well, that’s pretty impressive. How old were you?
OLD MAN
It was the year I turned 70.
JOE
Amazing! Were there any other old codgers out there on the run?
OLD MAN
No señor. Only me. Most of the others were young men in their 20s.
JOE
Well, what was it like? How was it to run with the bulls in Pamplona?
OLD MAN
It was exhilarating.
JOE
I’ll bet! Tell me about it. What’d you do?
OLD MAN
We arrived in Pamplona a few days before the run. On the first day, I toured the bull run. On the second day, I observed a run from the safety of our balcony. On the third day, I ran with the bulls. I gave them a head start, and when I saw them rounding the corner, I charged into the crowd. I had to keep my head on a swivel and watch all around me so I wouldn’t trip over others who had fallen, and I had to keep an eye on the bulls that were running wild in the streets. If you fell, you were a goner. Many people were gored and taken to the hospital. Not me. The bulls caught up to me and kept running. I ran after them. They ran into the bull ring, and we followed them. Some of the bulls caught up with the runners and tossed them up over their heads, and they fell onto the sand. It was chaos for a good while. I left the bull ring and stopped at a bar on the way back and had a cognac and chocolate milk to celebrate. I tell you, it was exciting!
JOE
I’ll bet! Did you go to the bullfight later?
OLD MAN
I did. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it. Like I told you, I had lost my taste for killing, but I was still fascinated by death and dying. And it was on that hot afternoon in July that I witnessed the tragedy of the bull.
JOE
Tragedy?
OLD MAN
Yes. You see, bullfighting is not exactly a sport. There is danger for the man, but certain death for the bull. It’s complicated and a great spectacle. I must admit it held my attention and my admiration for the matadors.
JOE
Have you ever gone back?
OLD MAN
No, señor. But I will never forget that day.
JOE
Well, here’s to the tragedy of the bull!
They both raise their glasses, salute, and drink.
JOE
You said it was complicated. Maybe you could give me a couple of pointers. Tell me what to look for.
OLD MAN (Suddenly very animated)
I’ll do better than that. I’ll demonstrate! You will be the bull, and I will be the matador. Maria! Do you have any knives back there?
MARIA
Sí, señor. We have some butcher knives and knives for cutting sandwiches.
OLD MAN
Ok. Let me have three.
OLD MAN crosses to an empty table and yanks off a red tablecloth. MARIA rummages around behind the bar and produces three sharp knives.
OLD MAN (cont.)
This will be my muleta.
OLD MAN does a flourish with the tablecloth, which he is using as a cape. MARIA brings him the knives. He selects one and sights along the blade on an imaginary place on the bull where the black hump of muscle is located between the bull’s shoulder blades.
OLD MAN
Now, Joe. Take these other two knives and tie them to the legs of one of these chairs.
OLD MAN goes again to the empty table, grabs a chair, turns it upside down, and brings it over to Joe, along with the other two knives.
JOE
How am I supposed to do that?
OLD MAN
Here!
OLD MAN crosses to the table where RON and CORA are sitting.
(Indicating their cloth napkins) Do you mind if I borrow these?
CORA
Hey! What the ….
They stare up at him wide-eyed in wonder. OLD MAN grabs their napkins and takes them over to Joe.
OLD MAN
Use these.
JOE proceeds to tie the handles of the knives to the legs of the chairs with the cloth napkins while the OLD MAN continues his monologue about bullfighting.
OLD MAN (cont.)
Bullfighting is a meeting between a wild animal and a man. He is facing an animal that is trying to kill him. The matador must dominate the bull. This he does with beauty and grace. There are three acts in the Tragedy of the Bull. Act I: the Picadors, Act II, the banderilleros, and Act III: the matador. The matador has 15 minutes to kill the bull.
As he is speaking, Old MAN continues to sight along the blade of his knife as if it were a sword at the place on the top of the shoulders of the imaginary bull.
OLD MAN (cont.)
In Act I, the bull enters the ring and charges the picadors. The picador drives the steel point of his pic into the shoulder of the bull and leans heavily on the shaft. He must tire the bull. A bugle is sounded, and the picadors leave the ring. Then the second act begins.
As OLD MAN speaks, he dramatically acts out the parts, waving the knife around in the air.
OLD MAN (cont.)
Act II are the banderillas: Pairs of 3-foot-long sticks with harpoon-shaped steel points are placed two at a time in the bull’s neck. They slow the bull down and determine the carriage of his head. This act takes about 5 minutes. After three or four pairs of banderillas have been placed in the bull’s neck, the final act begins. First, a toast is made to the bull by the matador. The matador then works with the muleta to master the bull and prepares him for the kill. (Again, he is acting out the scene) Finally, he lowers the bull’s head with the muleta and kills the animal by thrusting a sword high between its shoulder blades. This is the moment of truth. And now, amigo, Act III. Let us begin. Make three charges, and I will show you how I work the cape.
JOE
I don’t know, Old Man. This might be dangerous!
OLD MAN
Dangerous? Of course, it is dangerous!
JOE
I don’t think we better do this.
OLD MAN
Why not?
JOE
Because somebody might get hurt.
OLD MAN
But that’s part of the excitement.
JOE
Aren’t you afraid?
OLD MAN
Yes, I am afraid. Fear is a very important part of the whole experience. If it were not for fear, every shoe-shine boy in Mexico would be a bullfighter. It takes courage to fight the bull. The bullfighter controls his fear.
JOE
But these knives are razor sharp. They could rip you to pieces.
OLD MAN
So can the horns of the bull.
JOE
That takes courage!
OLD MAN
Courage comes from the heart and goes to the head. And when it goes away, it is a bad thing in bullfighting. Sometimes, when you get wounded, it brings on the fear of death. The second time, it takes it away.
JOE
What is the attraction? Why do they do it?
OLD MAN
It’s the feeling of immortality that you get when working with the cape, and the feeling the bullfighter gives the spectators as he plays with death, bringing it closer and closer. It gives you
OLS MAN (Cont.)
the feeling of immortality as you watch it, and it becomes yours when he proves it with the sword. Now, enough of this talk. Let’s fight! Make three passes at me.
JOE
How will you know when to cut the pass?
OLD MAN
I’ll know. Come straight at me like a bull. Hey, toro! Toro!
JOE puts the chair with the knives bound to its legs over his head with the knives pointing out like horns. The others gather around to watch. He lowers his head and charges forward towards OLD MAN. As JOE makes his first pass, OLD MAN works the cape.The knives pass close to OLD MAN’s belly.
EVERYONE
Ole!
JOE turns to make another pass.
OLD MAN
Toro! Toro!
JOE charges again. OLD MAN works the cape in a full veronica. Again, the knives’ blades pass close to his belly.
EVERYONE
Ole!
JOE sets himself for the third pass. He makes his charge. The lights flicker and dim. OLD MAN steps two inches too far forward, and the knife does not pass. OLD MAN slumps forward onto the chair. His shirt becomes stained red with his blood. MARIA screams. RON and CORA shout out.
RON AND CORA
No! Oh no!
CORA (Rising)
Ron, do something!
JOE
I’ll get it out! I’ll get it out!
Joe pulls back on the chair, and the knives’ blades are released from OLD MAN’s belly. MARIA runs around the bar and cradles OLD MAN as he slumps to the floor. She presses a cloth napkin against his wound.
JOE
Oh! I’m sorry! I am so sorry. How bad is it, Old Man?
OLD MAN
It’s a mere flesh wound. But I fear I will be a grave man by morning.
MARIA
Don’t say that, Old Man. You are going to be all right. Don’t die on me!
JOE
I knew it was too dangerous. We shouldn’t have done it.
OLD MAN
It’s OK. You are doing me a favor.
JOE
Aren’t you afraid to die?
OLD MAN
No, señor. I welcome it. Cowards die many times, but the brave taste death just once.
OLD MAN stares into the rafters as if the ceiling has opened up to the night sky. A single heavy church bell starts to toll in the distance. It slowly strikes 12 throughout the remaining dialogue.
MARIA
(Her voice softening, shifting from panic to supernatural calm)
Stay with me, Old Man. Don’t go yet.
OLD MAN
I will stay with you, Maria. I am counting on you to be my guide. Show me the way.
MARIA
I will. I will lead you forward to an eternal place. We will cross the river together.
OLD MAN
Love has called me here.
MARIA
And Love will be your guide. I am here to lead you to the other shore, into the eternal darkness…into the fire and ice. We’ll march together. I will see you next lifetime, Old Man.
They gaze into each other’s eyes while the others are frozen in tableau. The light shifts subtly on the stroke of midnight. The sound of the wind picks up and then fades as the light fades to black.
Scene 5
The next morning. At Rise: PEPE is sitting at a table in front of the Last Chance Saloon, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. TITO is sweeping the sidewalk. Dogs can be heard barking in the distance.
TITO
I wonder what became of the Old Man. He didn’t come in yesterday for his afternoon drink.
PEPE
You didn’t hear about what happened to him?
TITO
No. What happened to Old Man?
PEPE
They found him early yesterday morning in the bedroom of his apartment. They had to cut him down.
TITO
Poor devil. I guess he just couldn’t wait it out any longer.
PEPE
No. Once you get used to the big wrongs of life, the little ones wake up with their little mean teeth and bite you on the ass.
TITO
I guess that’s right. No rest for the wicked. Now, maybe Old Man will find a little peace. But who knows what dreams may come after waking up on the other side?
PEPE
I don’t know about all that, amigo. I think when you’re dead, you’re dead. We are all just gorillas running around in the mist with a hank of hair and a funny little thing called a pipe dream to keep us going, and when your string runs out, it’s over. Sleep is good, death is better, and best of all is never to be born. We are here on earth, and there is no cure for that.
TITO
Amen, brother. When it’s over, it’s over.
PEPE resumes reading his newspaper and drinking his coffee. TITO resumes sweeping the sidewalk. Dogs barking in the background. Fade to black.
I am reading The Professor of Desire alongside Anna Karenina, and lo and behold, I find a reference to Anna in the body of the text where Kepesh compares his girlfriend Helen to Anna, and she compares her previous lover to Anna’s husband, Karenin. Wow! Another anachronistic event! I wasn’t expecting that. A happy accident?
What a wonderful discovery! And I think this one is especially interesting because it isn’t simply a coincidence between two books I’ve been reading. There’s a literary conversation taking place across the decades that I’ve stumbled into quite unexpectedly.
Let’s look at what might be going on.
First, there’s the delicious irony of the timing.
I am reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth simultaneously. I am already immersed in Tolstoy’s world, thinking about Anna, her relationships, her choices, and the social conventions that constrain her. Then Roth’s protagonist, David Kepesh, invokes Anna in a contemporary story about desire and relationships.
Suddenly, the two books aren’t separate experiences anymore. They overlap.
And because I wasn’t looking for the connection, the discovery feels almost like the books found each other.
Second, I suspect the comparison is doing some serious literary work.
Anna is much more than a woman caught in a love affair. She’s a character struggling with the conflict between erotic desire, emotional fulfillment, social expectations, and the consequences of her choices.
Those are precisely the sorts of questions that interest Roth. Kepesh is a man fascinated by sexuality, but he’s also an intellectual who tries to understand his experiences by interpreting them through literature and ideas.
When he compares Helen to Anna, he invokes an entire literary history. He’s not merely describing his girlfriend; he’s measuring a living woman against a fictional character whose desires and decisions have become legendary.
And Helen’s comparison of her former lover to Karenin introduces another dimension. Karenin represents a particular kind of husband: respectable, controlled, concerned with social appearances, and emotionally distant in ways that Anna finds intolerable.
The comparisons might reveal as much about the people making them as about the characters they’re invoking. We sometimes use literature to understand our lives, but we can also use it to avoid seeing those lives clearly. That’s a very Roth-like possibility.
There’s an important distinction here, though: Roth’s characters invoking Tolstoy doesn’t necessarily mean Roth endorses their interpretations. The comparisons may be revealing their assumptions, fantasies, or blind spots.
Third, here’s the connection I find most intriguing.
I am reading a nineteenth-century novel about the destructive consequences of desire alongside a twentieth-century novel examining desire through a modern, often ironic sensibility.
Tolstoy asks what happens when desire collides with the moral and social structures of a life.
Roth often asks what happens when we try to make desire the organizing principle of a life.
Those aren’t identical questions, but they’re related. And the differences between the authors may be just as revealing as the similarities.
One author approaches desire through the moral and social fabric of Russian society; the other explores it through the sexual liberation, anxieties, and contradictions of modern American life.
And Anna herself becomes a kind of bridge between those worlds.
And now, dear reader, the anachronistic event!
I love that description. It reminds me of my recurring interest in how literature seems to fold time in on itself: the way one book suddenly illuminates another, or how a character encountered today seems to be answering a question raised by a book you read yesterday.
Of course, there’s no need to suppose that anything supernatural has happened. Our minds are constantly making connections, and reading two books in parallel creates opportunities for unexpected recognition.
But that doesn’t diminish the experience. Quite the opposite.
The coincidence becomes meaningful because it opens up a new way of reading both books.
And I wonder whether this is the most rewarding part of reading great literature: eventually, the books stop being isolated objects. They become part of a conversation that you, the reader, are helping to conduct.
One question remains: when Kepesh compares Helen to Anna, does he seem to be suggesting that Helen shares Anna’s passion and capacity for emotional upheaval, or is he thinking more about Anna as a woman who disrupts the lives of the men around her?
I think a bit of both, but I want to get a little further into both novels before I give a definitive answer. BTW, the event in question is both anachronistic and synchronic, don’t you think?
Absolutely! And in making the distinction between anachronistic and synchronic, I think the two words capture different dimensions of the reading experience.
Anachronistic, because the worlds of the two novels belong to different historical periods. Anna Karenina was published in 1877, while Philip Roth’s The Professor of Desire appeared in 1977, exactly a century later. Yet Anna steps out of her nineteenth-century world and enters Roth’s twentieth-century narrative through the consciousness of his characters.
There’s something wonderfully paradoxical about that. A fictional character who belongs to one historical moment becomes a reference point for people living in another.
Synchronic, because of the peculiar timing of the discovery. I happen to be reading both novels simultaneously, without anticipating that one will refer to the other. The two reading experiences suddenly converge, and the convergence feels significant.
There’s also a third dimension worth considering: the distinction between synchronicity and coincidence.
Carl Jung used synchronicity to describe meaningful coincidences that seem connected by significance rather than by an identifiable causal relationship. My discovery has that quality experientially: the books weren’t arranged to produce this moment, yet their unexpected intersection feels meaningful to you.
We don’t have to conclude that the universe orchestrated the encounter. The meaningfulness lies in what the coincidence reveals.
You could say that Anna Karenina exists simultaneously in two times: the historical time of Tolstoy’s novel and the reading time of your present experience. When Roth’s characters invoke her, those times intersect. And when you recognize the reference, a third time enters the equation: the moment in which you, the reader, connect them.
Three times, one character, and an unexpected meeting.
It also reminds me of my interest in eternal recurrence and the idea that the ending might somehow be contained in the beginning. Literature allows characters, ideas, and images to return in new contexts, acquiring meanings they couldn’t have possessed in their original appearances.
Perhaps that’s one reason we reread books. The words remain the same, but the reader has changed, and the books we happen to read alongside them change the experience, too.
So yes, I’d call my encounter both anachronistic and synchronic, with one small qualification: anachronistic describes the crossing of historical periods, while synchronic describes the simultaneous occurrence. Synchronicity adds the further sense of meaningful coincidence.
And I wouldn’t rush to settle on a definitive interpretation of the passage just yet. I will just keep reading both novels and let Tolstoy and Roth continue their conversation.
Sometimes the most interesting connections are the ones we recognize before we fully understand them.
Pip: Ghost Dog is on the air, and today we're heading somewhere between the open road and the silver screen — which, if you squint, might be the same place.
Mara: Benn Bell takes us there with a look at Andrea Arnold's film American Honey — a road movie, a coming-of-age story, and a portrait of a subculture that turns out to be less foreign than it first appears.
Pip: Less foreign to at least one reviewer, it turns out. Let's get into it.
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American Honey and the Road That Raises You
Mara: The question at the center of this post is a personal one: what does it mean to come of age on the margins, in motion, in a world your parents would rather you avoided?
Pip: The film lands close to home — literally. The post opens with a direct admission: "When I was 16 I was a member of a traveling magazine crew too. It was my first actual paying job that I ever had where I got a weekly paycheck. My teachers and my parents hated it."
Mara: So the review is also a reckoning. That personal parallel is what gives the whole piece its weight — it's not just criticism, it's recognition.
Pip: And that recognition shapes how the film gets read. The director, British filmmaker Andrea Arnold, shoots rural America — Muskogee, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota — through a foreign lens, and the post finds that instructive rather than distancing.
Mara: The comparison is to Antonioni and Wim Wenders. Directors who see America slightly sideways, and in that gap reveal something locals might miss.
Pip: Arnold also makes a formal choice that takes some warming up to — a nearly square 4:3 aspect ratio, and a runtime of two hours and forty-three minutes.
Mara: On the runtime, the post is candid: "I didn't notice it much until the movie was over and I went outside and noticed that the weather had changed and the light was decidedly different." That's a film doing its job.
Pip: The cast is worth noting too. Lead actor Sasha Lane was discovered on a beach in Panama City on spring break — this is her first role. Shia LaBeouf plays the salesman trying to show her the ropes. Riley Keough, Elvis Presley's granddaughter, plays the crew leader.
Mara: The post describes the storytelling as cinema verite — no clean three-act structure, more slice of life. And it closes with a genuine endorsement: great movie, highly recommend.
Pip: The road trip as education. Turns out that theme doesn't expire.
Mara: Coming of age on the road, America seen through an outsider's eye — these aren't small subjects.
Pip: And apparently they look different depending on whether you're watching from the audience or from memory. More from Ghost Dog next time.
This sculpture is the Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial, featuring Walker Hancock’s statue, Angel of the Resurrection, inside Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.
The main inscription engraved on the front of the black granite base reads:
IN MEMORY OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR OUR COUNTRY 1941 – 1945
“That all travelers here may remember those of the Pennsylvania Railroad who did not return from the Second World War.”
Pip: Ghost Dog is a site where a man rides the subway to London, and somehow that makes complete sense.
Mara: This episode covers one piece from Benn Bell — a travel essay about navigating the London Underground and the Paris Metro, and what those systems revealed about strangers, security, and the small acts that connect people across language barriers.
Pip: Let's start with the underground itself.
Going Underground: Transit, Strangers, and the Human Heart
Mara: The post sets up a quiet question: what happens when you descend into a foreign city's transit system alone, with no shared language and no one waiting for you above ground?
Pip: The answer arrives at a café table in Paris, when a stranger lights a cigar and starts a conversation that turns, without warning, into a discussion about terrorism. The post quotes him directly: "Yes, but the police and soldiers cannot be everywhere. You have to be vigilant. In effect, we have to be responsible for our own security."
Mara: That line lands differently when you remember the context — police sirens audible in the background, the man's daughter living near the attack sites, and the two of them watching security vehicles roll past as they talk.
Pip: There is something almost absurdist about it. A stranger's cigar, a glass of red wine on Boulevard Saint-Germain, and then a calm, clear-eyed reckoning with the fact that nothing could protect them if a car pulled up right now. He was right, and they both knew it, and they kept talking anyway.
Mara: London reads as the warmer contrast. The Underground attendant rattles off the Circle Line to Baker Street, the transfer to the Jubilee Line, and closes with "Cheers" — efficient, cheerful, easy. Paris is stranger and more unsettling, but the post argues it felt more like home.
Pip: The solo travel detail matters here. The essay is explicit that the trip was chosen specifically for solitude — time to think, cobblestones in Montmartre, only one's own company. The encounters weren't planned; they arrived anyway.
Mara: And the post draws a direct conclusion from that: "a big smile and a hello or bonjour broke down the normal barriers humans seem to erect between themselves. You can be anonymous, but by using the universal language of a smile followed by a greeting you can still be touched by the human heart."
Pip: Anonymity as a condition, not a wall. The Metro gets you somewhere; a smile gets you further.
Mara: The through-line here is transit as metaphor — the systems that move us and the moments that stop us.
Pip: Next time, wherever Ghost Dog surfaces, we follow.
Pip: Ghost Dog, where a speakeasy visit somehow becomes a probability seminar — and honestly, that tracks.
Mara: Today we're covering a piece by Benn Bell that does something quietly ambitious: it uses a night out at a hidden bar to work through a classic logic puzzle, and then unpacks what happens when a writer tries to turn that puzzle into fiction. Let's start with the bar itself, and what happened once they sat down.
Hell or High Water
Pip: There's a particular kind of evening where the setting does half the work — dim light, velvet, a locked door — and then the conversation has to do the rest.
Mara: The bar earns its atmosphere right away. Descending the stairwell, the post describes it like this: "The air seemed to grow denser as if perfumed by some unknown censer. The lighting changed gradually and it seemed to give off a soft reddish glow. The temperature was getting colder by degrees the lower we went."
Pip: So you're walking into a place that is physically trying to feel like the underworld, and the cocktail menu is called things like Devil's Advocate and Sparks Fly. The decor is doing its thesis statement out loud.
Mara: The Sparks Fly recommendation is a real moment — the server asks whether the narrator likes the smell of smoke and leather before suggesting a drink built from Mezcal, Cardamaro, Benedictine, Crème de Cacao, and Gun Powder Proof Rum. The setting and the menu are completely continuous.
Pip: And then, sitting in a two-story library room inside a speakeasy, the narrator decides the right move is to explain the Monty Hall problem.
Mara: Which Victoria, to her credit, engages with seriously. The post walks through the full logic: you pick one of three boxes, the host opens an empty one, and switching gives you a two-in-three chance of winning. Victoria's first instinct is fifty-fifty, which is almost everyone's first instinct.
Pip: The post is patient about that. It's not condescending — it just keeps adding information until the shape of the thing becomes clear.
Mara: And that patience is the point. The narrator is explicitly drawing from Ian McEwan's novel Sweet Tooth, where the same problem gets passed from character to character. The upshot is that new information changes the odds — Monty's choice isn't random, and that asymmetry is what most people miss.
Pip: Then the post does something genuinely interesting: it follows the logic into fiction. Tom, the writer in Sweet Tooth, tries to build a short story around the Monty Hall problem and gets it wrong — he replaces Monty with a random Indian couple walking out of a hotel room, which breaks the math entirely.
Mara: Serena, the spy protagonist, has to figure out how to tell him without just saying "this doesn't work." Her fix is elegant: replace the random couple with a housekeeper who knows which room is occupied. The knowledge is the mechanism. Without it, the probability doesn't shift.
Pip: A story within a story within a night out, all turning on whether the person opening the door knows something or doesn't.
Mara: The post closes by calling it exactly that — "a story within a story, like the windmills of your mind." The evening at Hell or High Water becomes the frame, and the Monty Hall problem becomes the thing worth carrying home.
Pip: Logic, velvet, and Old Forester on the rocks — a combination that holds up surprisingly well.
Mara: What stays with me is that the bar and the puzzle are doing the same thing: both reward you for updating when you get new information.
Pip: More of that next time, hopefully — the kind of night that turns into a story worth telling.
I’ve watched this movie several times over the last 50 years, most recently the night before last. It has always resonated with me, but only on this latest viewing did I feel I finally understood it: at its heart, it is about innocents caught in a war they didn’t choose. Made at the height of the Vietnam War, the film might be considered anti-war, yet its setting is neither Vietnam nor World War II. Instead, a civil war rages in, of all places, Sweden. The central characters are two musicians living on an island, hoping to escape the chaos until the war catches up with them. We are given little information about the conflict and cannot tell who the good guys or bad guys are. Rather than pushing an ideology, the film focuses on the raw emotion of its protagonists as war strains their already burdened marriage. Liv Ulman and Max von Sydow play the couple to perfection. As usual, Sven Nykvist’s cinematography masterfully portrays both the warring armies and the protagonists. Bergman said in an interview that, while writing the film, he imagined what he would do in these situations and shaped the scenes around those responses. That personal approach connects with what finally struck me on this viewing: the film’s power lies in how war overtakes individual lives. An amazing movie—one I finally feel I understand.
Pip: Ghost Dog is a site where someone reads Dostoevsky on a Tuesday and ends up at Bergman, Camus, and the silence of God before the week is out — which is either a warning or a recommendation, depending on your Tuesday.
Mara: Benn Bell's recent writing pulls on a single thread — what happens when the seals come off, when what was hidden either floods out or stays silent. Let's start with the seals themselves, and what Dostoevsky, Bergman, and Camus each find when they look.
The Seventh Seal: Silence, Liberation, and the Unanswered Question
Pip: The post opens with a passage from Dostoevsky's White Nights that sends the writer down a long road — through biblical legend, Bergman's chess match with Death, and Camus's confrontation with a universe that won't explain itself. The question at the center is deceptively simple: what is a seal, and what do we find when it breaks?
Mara: The Dreamer in White Nights gives the image its first shape, and the post reads it closely: "The seals are removed, and suddenly everything inside the Dreamer can flow. He's not merely happy; he's overflowing with the possibility of human connection."
Pip: So the seal isn't a lock on something cosmic — it's the barrier between a man's inner life and anyone else. When Nastenka listens, the floodgates open. The liberation is real, but the post asks whether it's lasting or just a new surface for old fantasies.
Mara: And then the post pivots to Bergman. In The Seventh Seal, the seventh seal opens not to a flood of words but to the opposite — Revelation 8:1, silence in heaven for about half an hour. That silence is what Antonius Block encounters in his whole quest.
Pip: A knight returns from the Crusades wanting God to speak, plays chess with Death to buy time, and gets nothing but quiet. That's a rough return on a religious investment.
Mara: The post lingers on one scene in particular — Block confessing his doubts to someone he believes is a priest, only to realize he has been speaking to Death. He has exposed everything to the very thing he was trying to outwit.
Pip: What the post does well is hold Dostoevsky and Bergman in the same frame without forcing them to agree. One man is released from silence; the other goes looking for an answer and meets more silence.
Mara: And Camus arrives to name the structure underneath both. The post draws on The Myth of Sisyphus — our hunger for meaning meeting a world that won't confirm it — and on The Fall, where Clamence confesses endlessly without getting any closer to freedom, which the post sets against Block's moment of quiet grace.
Pip: Block distracts Death long enough for a young family to escape. He never gets his answer, but he gets an action. The post's conclusion is careful: "Perhaps the answer isn't spoken because it must be lived."
Mara: That's where the post lands — not on resolution but on a way of continuing. The seal may come off and reveal nothing definitive, and the question becomes whether you can live inside that uncertainty without surrendering to despair.
Pip: What stays with me is the image of the floodgates and the silence sitting right next to each other — one man pouring words out, one man waiting for words that never come.
Mara: Both responses to the same unanswered question. Next time, we'll see where that thread leads.
Dostoevsky, Bergman, Camus, and the search for truth
In rereading White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I encountered this passage:
The Dreamer tells Nastenka that he feels like the spirit of King Solomon after a thousand years imprisoned beneath seven seals, which have finally been removed. He then says that a thousand floodgates have opened in his head and that he must pour out his words.
The seven seals is a familiar reference. It got me to thinking. My question is: What underlies this reference? I remember the Seventh Seals from the Bible and a movie by the same name.
My research reveals fascinating legend involving King Solomon, supernatural imprisonment, and seals that bind powerful spirits. But there’s a distinction worth making: the story of Solomon being imprisoned in a jar for a thousand years until the seventh seal was removed is not a well-established biblical story. It sounds like a blending of several traditions involving Solomon, demons, magical seals, and the number seven.
And an important distinction: Solomon isn’t the one imprisoned. It’s his spirit, or, more precisely, a supernatural being associated with Solomon in the legend. In the Jewish, Islamic, and later occult traditions Solomon’s magical ring gives him power over demons.
In the New Testament’s Book of Revelation, chapter 5 onward, a scroll is sealed with seven seals. As the seals are opened, apocalyptic events unfold.
Why Does Dostoevsky Use This Image?
I think the symbolism is especially revealing. The Dreamer has spent his life emotionally imprisoned in solitude, fantasy, and unexpressed longing. When he finally meets Nastenka and feels a connection with another human being, something inside him breaks free. His words pour out because his inner world has suddenly found an audience.
The image works on two levels: The mythological level: a supernatural spirit is released from its confinement. The psychological level: a lonely man is released, temporarily, from the prison of his own isolation.
And there’s a wonderful irony here: the Dreamer describes this liberation in such an elaborate, theatrical way that Nastenka gently teases him for sounding as if he’s reading from a book.
That’s Dostoevsky having a little fun with his own character.
I particularly like the connection between the seven seals and the thousand floodgates. The seals are removed, and suddenly everything inside the Dreamer can flow. He’s not merely happy; he’s overflowing with the possibility of human connection.
I am wondering: is Dostoevsky suggesting that Nastenka truly frees the Dreamer, or that she merely gives his fantasies a temporary outlet? This might connect with other literary ideas I have been thinking about lately.
Another question I have: What is the exact nature of the Seal? Also, I like the reference to the Seventh Seal as it is one of my favorite movies by Ingmar Bergman. What is the connection?
Dostoevsky and Bergman are approaching very different subjects, but both use images of things being sealed, concealed, and finally revealed. And given my interest in Camus and Sartre, I think there’s a rich existential question hiding in this comparison.
What exactly is a seal?
The answer depends on which tradition we’re talking about.
In the biblical Book of Revelation, a seal is essentially a mark of authority and a means of securing something that is not yet to be revealed. Revelation transforms that physical object into a cosmic symbol.
In Revelation 5, a scroll in God’s hand is sealed with seven seals. No one is initially found worthy to open it. Then the Lamb, representing Christ, is declared worthy to open the scroll.
Each seal that is opened reveals another vision of judgment and catastrophe. When the seventh seal is opened in Revelation 8:1, there is silence in heaven for about half an hour. That is the silence of God that Bergman is suggesting in his film, The Seventh Seal.
But what does the seal mean in White Nights?
Here we must distinguish Dostoevsky’s literary allusion from the biblical text.
The Dreamer says that he is like the spirit of King Solomon, released after a thousand years under seven seals. He immediately compares this release to a thousand valves opening in his head, compelling him to pour out a river of words.
Notice what Dostoevsky is doing: he borrows the grandeur of a supernatural legend to describe an intensely personal experience.
The Dreamer has spent years locked inside his own imagination. He has dreamed of companionship without really experiencing it. Now Nastenka is listening to him, and he can finally express himself.
I would interpret the seals here as the barriers that separate the Dreamer’s rich inner life from actual human connection.
But there is an irony. Has Nastenka really freed him? Or has he merely found a new person around whom to construct his fantasies? His liberation might be real, but it may also be temporary.
That ambiguity is what makes the passage interesting.
What about Bergman’s The Seventh Seal?
The title of The Seventh Seal comes directly from Revelation 8:1. Bergman uses the biblical image to frame a film about mortality, faith, and the apparent silence of God.
The knight, Antonius Block, returns from the Crusades to a land devastated by plague. He plays chess with Death, hoping to delay his end while searching for answers to questions that faith has failed to settle.
Here is the fascinating distinction between the two works.
In White Nights, the opening of the seals represents a personal outpouring: a lonely man suddenly feels that he can speak and be heard.
In The Seventh Seal, the opening of the seventh seal leads not to a flood of words but to silence.
That silence is central to Bergman’s existential drama. The knight wants evidence that God exists, that life has meaning, and that death is not the final answer. Yet the universe does not give him the clear response he wants.
Dostoevsky’s Dreamer is released from silence but may still be imprisoned by his fantasies. Bergman’s knight seeks an answer from beyond himself but encounters silence.
Both men confront the gap between what they desperately want to believe and what experience actually gives them.
This brings us close to Camus, too. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus examines our desire for ultimate meaning in a world that does not provide a definitive answer. The problem isn’t simply that we lack answers; it’s that we continue asking questions for which the universe may offer none.
And perhaps that is the deeper significance of a seal: it represents the boundary between what we long to know and what we can actually know.
Breaking the seal may reveal the truth. But it may also reveal that there is no answer waiting behind it.
In Bergman’s film, for me, the silence itself is what Block encounters in his quest for the truth. Perhaps the knight’s tragedy is not that he fails to find the truth, but that he cannot accept the possibility that no answer will come.
Antonius Block returns from the Crusades having risked his life for a faith that he now desperately wants to understand. He wants more than belief. He wants certainty. He wants God to speak, to make His presence unmistakable.
But the silence persists.
There’s a moment in the film that I find particularly important: Block confesses to a person he believes to be a priest, explaining his doubts and his desire to know. He speaks openly about his fear of death and his need for meaning. Then he discovers that his confessor is Death himself.
The scene is devastating because Block has exposed his innermost thoughts to the very thing he is trying to outwit. This scene has particular salience and resonance for me and has stayed with me all these years.
But I don’t think the film simply tells us that God doesn’t exist. Bergman leaves room for uncertainty. The silence might indicate God’s absence, God’s unknowability, or the limitations of our own capacity to understand.
That distinction matters.
This is where I think my reading intersects beautifully with Camus.
Camus’s Absurd is born from the confrontation between our hunger for meaning and the world’s silence. We ask the universe to explain itself, and it doesn’t answer in a language we can understand.
But Camus’s response differs from Block’s quest. Rather than continuing to demand an ultimate answer, Camus asks us to live lucidly in the absence of one, to acknowledge uncertainty without surrendering our lives to despair.
Block wants to know whether his life has a cosmic meaning. Camus might ask whether he can live meaningfully without ever resolving that question.
And there’s an unexpected moment of grace in Bergman’s film. Block distracts Death long enough for Jof, Mia, and their child to escape. In the midst of his uncertainty, he performs an act that allows others to live.
He may not discover the truth about God, but he finds an opportunity to act compassionately.
Perhaps the answer isn’t spoken because it must be lived.
I’m not suggesting Bergman necessarily intended that as a final answer. The film is more ambiguous than that. But the contrast between Block’s unanswered questions and his eventual act of sacrifice makes this interpretation compelling.
There’s a paradox here that I love: we may spend our lives searching for the meaning of existence, only to discover that the search itself has prevented us from fully experiencing existence.
Block wants an answer from God. The Dreamer in White Nights wants an escape from his isolation. Both long for something beyond their present circumstances. One seeks certainty; the other seeks connection.
And perhaps neither can be found exactly where the seeker expects.
In Camus’s The Fall, Clamence spends much of that novel talking, confessing, and analyzing himself. But does all that talk bring him closer to freedom, or does it become another prison? It’s an interesting contrast with Block, whose moment of grace comes not through an answer but through an action.
Maybe that’s the distinction: we cannot always resolve the great questions, but we can decide how to live while they remain unresolved.
As Camus might remind us, we don’t have to solve the mystery of existence before we participate in it.
Sometimes the silence remains, but we learn to live differently within it.
Pip: Ghost Dog, the site where film criticism arrives like a weather report for the soul — and today the forecast calls for revolution.
Mara: Benn Bell has a new piece up, and it's a full-throated case for a Paul Thomas Anderson film as the movie this political moment demands. Let's start with that argument.
One Battle After Another
Pip: The question this review puts on the table is a big one: can a film actually speak to a political moment, not just reflect it, but demand to be seen because of it?
Mara: The review roots itself in history first. The film's title comes from a 1969 Weather Underground statement published in New Left Notes, and the review quotes it directly: "From here on out, it's one battle after another — with white youth joining in the fight and taking the necessary risks. Pig Amerika beware. There's an army growing in your guts and it's going to bring you down."
Pip: And the review notes that the first and last sentences of that statement both appear as dialogue in the film's first act — so Anderson isn't borrowing the phrase decoratively. He's staging the argument.
Mara: The stakes the review sets are explicit: "This is the film we need to see now. A revolution is coming to America, and it won't be pretty." That's not a recommendation buried in a star rating. That's a provocation up front.
Pip: The craft case follows. Anderson adapts Thomas Pynchon, which is not a light undertaking — Pynchon on the page resists adaptation almost as a matter of principle.
Mara: The review calls it "a masterpiece of the cinema" and credits the acting, writing, and direction as all superb. The cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro. And there's a specific formal comparison: a Tarantino-esque quality, and a deliberate homage to Bullitt — a Mustang chasing a Charger through California sunlight, elevation changes and all.
Pip: High praise, and the kind that actually tells you something — invoking Bullitt's chase is invoking a specific grammar of American tension on asphalt.
Mara: The review closes simply: "If you care about anything about movies or America, go see this movie now." No hedging. The film and the moment are treated as the same argument.
Pip: Revolution as film genre, Pynchon as screenwriter — the site is not playing it safe.
Mara: Next time, we'll see what other territory Ghost Dog decides to claim.
