Light On Dark Water

Not So Calm Before the Storm

Yet again, only six weeks after Hurricane Dennis, we are preparing for
a hurricane. Although Hurricane Katrina is as of right now (10pm Sunday night)
heading for New Orleans, a lot can happen in the next twelve hours or so.
And besides, this storm is so large and intense that even if it doesn’t
change course we’ll still get a hurricane.

We completed most of our preparations much earlier in the day, and now
although there is nothing much that I can do I find it hard to focus on
anything. I had intended to write tonight about a movie that I saw for
the third or fourth time Friday night: The Day the Earth Stood Still. But
that will have to wait till next Sunday, or some other time.

I find this foreboding idleness very hard to bear. I figured out many
years ago that I have a very low tolerance for novels or plays or movies in which
the characters brood and fret and talk inactively and unproductively. I think I
remember an essay in which Matthew Arnold declares this a fatal fault in drama,
and I agree with him. I understand perfectly
well that beneath a superficial calm profound inner dramas may occur,
psychological or spiritual crises
may arise and be resolved. But it had better be done with genius, as by Ingmar Bergman.
If not, bring on the car chases.