Distraction Action

I’ve never seen Die Hard. Why not? Eh, it looked like a cheesy Bruce Willis frat boy, aren’t-men-strong-funny-heroic-sexy-strong, fluffy, two dimensional, leave-your-brain-at-home action flick where lots of things go boom but none of the good guys die or suffer much more than a scratch. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Then I heard that it’s a Christmas movie. That is my least favorite holiday and that put me off even more. To be fair, I don’t think I have a favorite holiday. I’m not a holiday kind of person.

All of a sudden though, I want to see Die Hard. Warum? I just read a post praising the villain, played by Alan Rickman. My god, he was one of my favorite actors. The man could play a ham sandwich in a 2-act about a lonely, unfulfilled panini. He'd make it emotionally encompassing — rich and funny without cheating the depth. I’d leave the theater in tears but also laughing, remembering his tone, postures, and looks that communicated much more than mere words.

I wonder if Rickman and Tim Curry ever performed together. They’d totally burn down the house!

* just did a quick search and the sad answer is no. WHAT a loss to the theater! Can you just imagine them in Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story or Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune? How about A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters or Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair? 

They would have killed! Seriously.
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I’ve been in a book reading valley — just have NOT been able to find any new reads or fresh authors that trip my trigger. The better part of the problem here is that I’m after something that will amuse and distract me from the horrors that are going on in the world right now but I don’t want something that’s the literary equivalent of cotton candy, deep fried oreos, and Cadbury Creme Eggs. //shudder// 

Sure, I want a happy ending but I want some adventure, a little realism, a thought provoking theme or two wouldn’t be bad. So, this brought me back to Philip K. Dick who I haven’t read in eons. What I remember from when I was binge reading him in my 20s is that his books are fairly uneven. Some are brilliant, coherent, well written, provocative, and just generally great fucking rides. Others? Well, they may have some of those aspects to a certain degree, a few of them, but not enough to make the book, for me, a banger.

Right now I’m desperately trying to get away from doomscrolling. Spending an afternoon reading even a mid PK Dick sci-fi novel is gonna be light years better for my head than taking in more about the Cornell 7, how Pedo, Musk, etc. are working to rig the midterms, and seeing how many fresh innocents ICE, Putin, and Bibi have maimed and killed in the past 24 hours.

So then, I’m reading Dr. Futurity. The opening scene is set in the year 2012.

Jim Parsons is a talented doctor, skilled at the most advanced medical techniques and dedicated to saving lives. But after a bizarre road accident leaves him hundreds of years in the future, Parsons is horrified to discover an incredibly advanced civilization that zealously embraces death. Now, he is caught between his own instincts and training as a healer and a society where it is illegal to save lives.  (source) 

I’m enjoying the book so far but Dick def dips down on the cheesy side. Fer instance, when the leader of one of the tribes is responding to a statement Parsons has made that upsets her, Dick makes sure to describe how her full breasts lift as she takes a deep breath, her long, gleaming hair falling over them. When I read the line I rolled my eyes so hard I broke the sky.

Reminds me of that Tumblr post titled Male writers writing female characters: 

Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards.

Dr. Futurity came out in 1960. You know, the ‘60s — back when Playboy serialized Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Ursula K. Le Guin’s Nine Lives. That’s when they featured Arthur C. Clarke as well. 

I’m sure Dick was writing with his mostly male audience in mind.