assorted questions

[matthew.percy at utoronto.ca]

On Fri, 29 Nov 1996, Diana York Blaine wrote:

> Has anyone read _My Dark Places_ by James Ellroy?  It struck me as the
> non-fiction version of _V_. Does anyone else think the movie Brazil needed
> some serious editing?  The second time I sat through it I envied
> Dustin Hoffman's character in Marathon Man during the dentist scene. Does
> anyone else think Faulkner's _As I Lay Dying_ fits neatly into the
> funny/unfunny dichotomy we've been discussing? My students think I'm nuts
> when I discuss the humor, and on some level it seems fair to accept their
> perspective as legitimate. In fact, perspective seems germane to the issue
> here--do we watch and read with a universal perspective?  Is humor an
> absolute?  Or highly contextualized?  Has anyone on the list seen
> the Jesco White documentary, for example? Finally, I was purchasing a gift
> in a SoCal behemoth retail outlet when something about my check-out girl's
> features struck me as familiar.  I looked down at her name tag and found
> that I was being waited on by a Kafka. Yes, she said, she was a relation
> of his (with the nose and eyebrows to prove it I might add). Question:
> was the moment Kafkaesque?  Pynchonian?  Rabelaisian?  Marxist?
> Southern Californian?  (insert sideways smile graphic here).  Well, off to
> see BR549.  That band's name again?  BR549.   
> - Diana (the non-Paglian brand of feminist).
> 
> 
I think this moment was Kafkaesque and Carveresque simultaneously.  But I'm
not certain - 
	- Matt