Did you try...

Thinking of my weekend I’m reminded of the scene in the Roman portion of History of the World, Part I where Mel Brooks is at the unemployment office. What happens is he goes up to the counter and tells the woman (I think it’s Bea Arthur) that he’s a stand up philosopher:
Arthur: oh, you’re a bullshitter. Did you bullshit this week?
Brooks: no.
Arthur: did you try to bullshit this week?
Brooks: yes.

Well, I tried to bullshit this weekend. I tried to go to a play, it was the absolute last performance of Pinter’s Mirror (three short plays by Harold Pinter from around 1980) at Shakespeare and Company in Lennox Massachusetts (I was visiting my parents and they’re great about buying my tickets). The fates however would not have it. After human delay (my mom), leaving my dad with the check for lunch and human error (my mom didn’t know where the theatre was) I ran into the box office at 2:02 and asked if I was too late for the play. I was informed by the confused (it’s amazing how everyone seems to be slightly retarded when you’re in a rush) unpaid interns that the show didn’t start until 3:00 but they would gladly sell me the one available ticket. Unless they would have gladly driven me home when the show ended I could not partake.

I wanted to see this play not just because it was an opportunity to see some rarely produced work of a Pulitzer prize winning playwright by a respected company, but also because somebody told me to. I don’t remember who told me to but who is not important. At some point in the beginning of last year I decided to write down everything that was referenced in my classes, by teachers or students. Narcism being what it is I very quickly discovered that I was pretty inattentive to all references that didn’t relate directly to me and my work. Since I graduated I’ve occasionally gone through my note books and, in addition to favorite quotes (including “the thing that was genius about Robo-cop...” and “I also do perverts”), there where names and titles scrawled on nearly half the pages. Pinter came up a few times, not specific titles, usually just “Pinter” or “read Pinter”. I haven’t yet read Pinter, it would have been nice to see some.

What we ended up seeing was Funny People, it was just okay. I had forgotten that I hate everything about Jason Schwartzman.