Consuming Blindly

Los Angeles in the morning after a night of rain is an alien place. Cars move slowly past slowly flowing mud tendrils intruding into the highway. The air is sharper and the colors brighter, stranger, one’s vision is no longer blurred. Angelenos appear slightly stunned as if they had just been roused out of bed. This is what happens when the seasonal intrudes upon a people who have convinced themselves that all measures of time are artificial, or at least that the clock can be turned back.

I was at a party a few days ago with the usual suspects. My friend the novelist and a small collection of the people representative of the sedimentary stratum of Hollywood: screen-writers, photographers, film critics, editors, and the guy who played Harry Goldenblatt on Sex in the City.

I conversed with a couple of fellows who could discourse easily on nineteenth century history and literature, worked in political speech writing, boasted ivy league degrees, and now respectively, wrote for Blind Date and an upcoming show about a blind police officer. I suggested they name the show Eyeless in La-la, as long as we’re talking about loss of meaning and people falling in love with their own servitude. All this blindness must be a sign of something, I’m guessing. One of the writers invited me to participate in a discussion happening later in the month in which Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad would be talked over, proving to me that in Hollywood, the role of producers and consumers is turned on its head. It is those who produce who are alienated from property, who quest after authentic experience, however inauthentically.

Of course, I’m so happy just to consume. Give me Tivo and HotPockets, let the air be blurred again, and program my Caller ID to block any messages coming in from Mr. Huxley.