TheBanyanTree: Fwd: Cheated

[Cecil]

At 8:42 AM -0800 1/13/06, Tobie Shapiro wrote:
>January 13, 20000006
>
>
>Dear Scott and all you other golden era folks,
>
>	The golden era.  You are talking about the period between 
>1930 and 1950 or so?  What you are missing is the movies, Scott. 
>You have an image of what went on during that era, and 
>unfortunately, it never existed except in the movies.  Let's take 
>the 1930s: global depression, starvation, drought, a third of the 
>work force unemployed in the United States (where most of the movies 
>take place).  People took comfort in the fantastic films that 
>projected an image of wealth and leisure, grand gestures and subtle 
>innuendo, the big suave.  How about the 1940s? How about World War 
>II and the rise of fascism in Europe coming to a head in the 
>holocaust?  The world was at war, nothing romantic about that. 
>Well, except in the movies.  The real people died in ditches or 
>ovens, sweated on factory assembly lines and collected rationing 
>coupons.  Then of course there was the beginning of the cold war, 
>the big drop on Hiroshima and Nagasake: no clever dinner talk there. 
>And then the 1950s, the era of the ugly American, Jim Crow, an 
>impoverished Europe trying to recover from the war.  I remember some 
>of the '50s.  It wasn't romantic.  Think about the House Unamerican 
>Activities Committee, black lists, the fear over our heads that we 
>would all wind up being incinerated into shadows in some stupid 
>nuclear war.  This is the era that inspired the rebellion of the 
>1960s against the cultural lies and misrepresentation of truths. 
>But in the movies it was musicals, epic films with thousands of 
>people and chariots, not as many clever dinner parties.  Oh, and 
>smoking those cigars and cigarettes?  We know what they really do to 
>you.  Not so glamourous.  In fact, "glamour" is what this is about. 
>It's a Scottish word.  Originally the definition was: apparent 
>beauty where no beauty actually exists.
>
>	Oh Scott, I know your pain.  It is a longing for something 
>marvellous to exist that never existed and never will.  Life is what 
>you make it.  We all have to invite people over and have our own 
>witty dinners (bon mots en croute), have our own harrowing 
>adventures, rattle our own bravado and court our own mysterious 
>lovers.  If you go to restaurants that take reservations and are on 
>a smaller scale, then you don't have to put up with the theme 
>restaurants with all the prepackaged food coming out of the bank of 
>microwaves.  Some of what you long for could be had with enough 
>money.  But the real magic and the mystery is you.
>
>	Yours,
>
>	Tobie

Right on, Tobie. How are you and the twins doing?

Cecil