🔭 The framing essay

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—With apologies to Rod Serling. And Jeanne Marshall. Her typewritten notes from his Antioch College writing class are online at the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation. An insightful epistolary tale. Definitely worth a scan.

Consider, if you will, a series of expanding rectangles. Or, if you’re into “Flatland,” a frustration of frusta thrust through a plane. This morbid procession marches to the soundtrack of — hey, The White Stripes totally ripped this off for the “Seven Nation Army” video.

Tonight’s stars: Michael Richards, Wilhelm von Homburg, Graham Linehan, Mr. Van Klomp, and Marge Simpson.

Welcome, art lovers. Perhaps these five corner cases strike you as problematic. Perhaps you’d rather séance up elephants from living rooms past than tightrope over these fetid penguinariums. Perhaps you’re under the right big-and-proud-top. This is “Anecdotes of Delightful Happenstance & Dilemmas.”

“The Kramer”

It was ten years after Y2K ruined everything. I saw Jason Alexander perform as Donny Clay, a not-so-inspirational speaker, in Las Vegas. Mostly because Penn was busy preening jubjub birds and Teller had a sore throat.

There was a little audience participation. At one point, the Not George Costanza called someone a name. Not a slur or anything, but the wrong name, nonetheless. The drunken, money-deprived crowd was upset, and I — err, they — let him know it.

Alexander’s apology was swift and gracious. The incident did not make the news.

Cue door-bursting Michael Richards entrance. (Or was that an exit?)

“Vigo the Carpathian”

An Olivier salad of adventure, dancing, and caste-based comedy racism — they’re called “masala films” for a reason. Bollywood and Indian films cleave to sappy tropes and transition in jarring, ill-fitting shifts, much like the thrice-baked raccoon-for-Thanksgiving story on the “The Danny Brown Show” podcast I’ve chosen to end this sentence with. Sure, I could cater context, but isn’t it more fun to just enjoy the ride?

…

The answer is: No. None of this mess works. I’ll level with you: This is my fifth round versus this shambling mound of an essay and, staring down the mossy void, engulfment is imminent. 

“Saint Matty Hislop”

It started innocently enough. I was reading a Jon Agee palindrome book and came across “Kramer’s remark.” Oh yeah, I thought, I have scribbled notes about problematic paintings in media.

The original idea was to couch it as a mid-2000s content farm listicle with punchy, drabble-length sections divided by convoluted breaks. I thought it’d be a funny way to explore nuanced subjects like race, caste, antisemitism, gender, misogyny, and feminism. 

Yes, seriously.

Also, I’d just rewatched the “Pickman’s Model” episode of Rod Sterling’s lesser-celebrated show, “Night Gallery,” and, the hat on a hat on a hat was irresistible.

Yes, seriously.

“The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies”

That’s what passes for entertainment around here. Actually, back to the Agee stuff, my wife and I strained over anagrams a whole evening but were unable to wrangle “a gay Baba Yaga” or “odor rodeo.” We did, however, tame “sex of tit foxes,” “T. Tub Butt,” and the soulless A.I. art prompt-ready “draw ‘B.O. gnome lobs B.O. lemon gobward.’”

Anyway, each section was intended to be a bait-and-switch anecdote. “The Kramer” would’ve slid into an unrelated cast member mishap. “Vigo the Carpathian” would’ve followed a baffling Bollywood biography. “Saint Matty Hislop” would’ve recited a self-serious monomaniacal litany with factual inaccuracies.

“Scene from Moby Dick”

Things got weird with “The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies.” I tried juxtaposing the nine-season long WWII humor of “‘Allo! ‘Allo!” with the canceled-after-one-episode tour-de-reich “Heil Honey I’m Home!” and deep “An American Tail” lore. That might’ve crossed a line. Which meant it would’ve been better for the Graham Linehan section.

 (“The Simpsons” over-the-couch painting reference was for the “fifth corner” joke and wordplay on the Homer/homo-erotic nature of the “A Squeeze of the Hand” chapter in “Moby Dick.”)

Also, I’d written a bunch of Indian film reviews for some reason.

Anyway, here are all those Indian film reviews. 

All Those Indian Film Reviews

🍿 “Koi … Mil Gaya”: What if “E.T.” helped “Forest Gump” get laid?

🍿 “Krrsh”: “Wet Hot American Summer” crashes “Batman Forever.”

🍿 “Krrsh 3: Not Krrsh 2”: Lazy-eyed X-men dropout.

🍿 “Dilwale”: Hey, is that the painting from “Ghostbusters 2” on the wall? Click back. That's totally the Vigo painting! Highlight of the movie.

🍿 “Happy New Year”: Best once a year. Or never.

🍿 “Singham”: Copaganda where they fight police corruption with even more police corruption. Also lionaganda.

🍿 “Bhool Bhulaiyaa”: Despite the ghost-busting psychologist, this has nothing to do with Scientology. Or does it?

🍿 “Parvarish”: Good Twin and Bad Twin team up to harass Bad Girls Turned Good Girls Or Maybe Not as they seduce the protagonists by threatening to kill themselves in various ways to a bumping '70s song and dance number. Here's your first and only warning for saxophone and accordion jump scares.

🍿 “Bajirao Mastani”: Historical hero combat with sword whips and a love triangle that includes a warrior princess. Yes please. Last scene? Tears.

🍿 “Padmaavat”: Epic poetry-inspired drama about male gaze with a total badass leading lady who subverts the patriarchy from within. Sign me up. Last scene? Chills.

🍿 “Piku”: Road trip comedy (?) where a beloved actor portrays an old man with chronic constipation. Last scene? Full release.

🍿 “Sheshnaag”: Gods are snakes who are also people who manipulate “an illiterate” — or are they trying to help him score? And why's that a plot point in so many films? —  and then … what the hell was that‽ Highly recommended.

So, um, yeah.

Good evening.