--- In [email protected], Sal Sunshine <salsunsh...@...> wrote: > > On May 13, 2009, at 3:58 PM, TurquoiseB wrote: > > > Jim as Sal, the...uh...boyfriend in Dog Day > > Afternoon whom Al Pacino robbed the bank for, > > to pay for his sex-change operation. :-) > > Gee, thanks.
Mea culpa. That was the character's name in the movie. No relation to you. For you, although I don't think I've ever met you, the first character that popped into my mind was Susan Sarandon in "Bull Durham." Sexy and smart. As for myself, I suspect Edg was way off the mark. For one thing, I'm probably younger than he is. For another, I never drool, much less try to entice women with cookies. Those of us who have been with more than two women in our lives have a somewhat better appreciation of what women might be looking for -- in a con- versation or a potential partner -- and it ain't an Oreo. :-) I jumped in and played the game because it's fun. And just to show you how much fun, I'll even "typecast" myself. And I suspect that my choice of character will please Edg no end, because he'll despise the character and look down on him. I bring it up because it segues nicely from the recent discussions about "evil." I'm pretty sure that one of the character's fascinations will have caused Edg to class him as irredeemably "evil." Me, I like the guy. I'm talking, of course, about Lester Burnham in "American Beauty." That's my idea of an interesting character, and one whom one could have an interesting discussion about. Lester presents one of the great "character arcs" in cinema. He "wakes up" one day to find out that he's essentially dead. His life stopped being a life years ago. But instead of moaning about it like some angst-filled Woody Allen character, he *does something about it*. He quits his job, flamboyantly. He stops taking shit from his wife, flamboyantly. He takes another job that most would think "beneath him" for the best of reasons, because he thinks it would be fun. And it IS fun. He drops all the bourgeois shit and starts pursuing enlightenment. True, enlightenment for Lester centers around indulging a few fantasies about a teenaged cheerleader. But hey!...let's face it...there are probably nuns who masturbate with Jesus dildos and people on this forum who do the same thing (at least mentally) to images of Lakshmi or Saraswati or Shiva. You don't think all those Shiva lingams on people's meditation tables are just rocks, do you? :-) He starts working out. He transforms as much physically as he does inwardly. And one night the opportunity comes to realize his fantasy. I can imagine Edg's skin crawling right now as he imagines the scene...this dirty old man getting predatory on the ass of a poor young thing. Edg probably can't "get past" that. But Lester does. He does the right thing. And then, still high *from* having done the right thing, he dies, *while in the highest state of consciousness he has ever achieved in his life*. "American Beauty" is almost Castanedan in its portrayal of a warrior's "dance to death," and achieving that death at the pinnacle of his conscious awareness during his lifetime. He meets death on his own terms, and happy, for the first time in many, many years. IMO, that's not a bad way to go. That's better than any "hero's death" in any "guy movie." His last words in life are: Lester Burnham: How's Jane? Angela Hayes: What do you mean? Lester Burnham: I mean, how's her life? Is she happy? Is she miserable? I'd really like to know, and she'd die before she'd ever tell me about it. Angela Hayes: She's... she's really happy. She thinks she's in love. Lester Burnham: Good for her. Angela Hayes: How are you? Lester Burnham: God, it's been a long time since anybody asked me that... I'm great. Angela Hayes: I've gotta go to the bathroom. Lester Burnham: I'm great. And then bam! With the words "I'm great" and the realization of a sense of comfort with his self and his life still in his mind, that mind exits the scene stage left and goes elsewhere. And as it does, flying through the astral above his old neighborhood on its way to the Bardo, it sends a message back to those still struggling with petty concepts like "evil" and trying to live their lives according to someone else's rules: Lester Burnham: [narrating] I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined my street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... And Janie... And... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday. Those who believe in "evil" probably can't "get past" the notion of Lester Burnham lusting after a teenaged cheerleader. To them, if a person does that, he's evil, and evil is BEYOND THE POSSIBILITY OF REDEMPTION. Buddhists don't see things that way. One act of redemption -- at the right time -- can shift one's state of attention and transform a life into a feeling of gratitude for every single moment of that stupid life, and leave one relaxed and looking forward to what comes next in the next stupid life. So if Edg were looking for an "evil" character to typecast me as, in my opinion he missed the boat. The image of Lester Burnham should have been the first one that popped into his mind. Lester does drugs, he unashamedly lusts after young girls, and he refuses to "follow the rules." That would definitely constitute "evil" in some people's minds. But I'm willing to bet that those people's minds are not going to greet their own deaths with the equanimity with which Lester met his. And I'm willing to bet that *their* journey through the Bardo to their next life will be filled with a lot more images of unresolved desires and un- dealt-with fears than his. Many of them will die without ever having lived. Lester lived, if only for a moment, gazing at a photo of his wife and daughter and answering the question "How are you?" with, "I'm great," and meaning it.
