narratives

[Gershom Bazerman]

>It was quite common in the sixties to smoke pot and goof on old movies
>and see a sinister, hidden, absurdist or universal meaning in just about
>anything.  Marx Bros. movie humor, for example, experienced when stoned,
>passed beyond yuks and into the realm of zen koan. Or became cerebral
>laffs. Or percolated up into a cosmic giggle which expressed the Real
>Human Condition.  So did Abbot and Costello and Ralph and Norton.  And
>then there was Busby Berkeley, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin.  And then
>there were other musicals such as with with Fred Astair, Gene Kelley and
>so forth...all available on TV in front of a bong.

This wasn't new to the 60s. In their own time, the Marx Bros were hailed by
the Surrealists, &c &c as we were reminded in the recent debate over low
vs. high media. Furthermore, Chaplin was the cause of the Situationist
split, And another silent film star (whose name escapes me) was riffed on
by a decidedly undrugged Nabokov in his novel about the chess player whose
name also escapes me. I could go on. Well, actually right now I couldn't,
but given the time, I'm sure I could, and I'm sure many others on this list
could go on much further than I could. Or, well, whatever.

	--Gershom Bazerman