"I Once Broke My Own Dictum"

So I’m writing about how much I enjoy springboarding my stories off of historical events – you may recall my recent fact-generated foray concerning the promotion of the guillotine as a case in point.  That was enjoyable, wasn’t it?

While assembling that post, I considered personalizing the proceedings by including a chunk about how, when I was writing the pilot for Best of the West, in the course of my research, I discovered that the reality about the guns in the Old West was that many of them were shoddily manufactured, making them unreliable in action, often shooting sideways, or blowing up in gun user’s hand.  This, along with the inherent danger of the activity itself, explains the reluctance of many people to participate in gunfights. 

“I drew first, but my sixgun blew up,” a shootout “runner-up” might have reported before succumbing to his wounds, one delivered by his adversary, the other, self-inflicted.

I retained this interesting factoid as I was structuring my pilot story to its inevitable – the show being a western – climactic showdown.  “Wouldn’t it be funny”, I asked myself, though without quotation marks, “if there were a classic gunfight, and the guns didn’t work?”

My answer to myself was a resounding “Lets’ do it!”

With the confrontational moment sewn into the lining of the genre itself, I now had a sitcomical strategy for pulling it off.

I was happily on my way.

The scenario builds to the gunfight.  Sam Best, a tenderfoot newly arrived from “Back East” refuses to pay the “protection money” demanded by the town’s corrupt, local kingpin.  Best is subsequently goaded into a gunfight with a notorious desperado hired by the kingpin, known as the Calico Kid (named after his preferred fabric for shirts.)  How menacing is the Kid?

SAM:  I don’t have a gun.  And shooting an unarmed man won’t be good for your reputation.

THE CALICO KID:  That is my reputation.

Sam is provided with a gun by Mountain Woman Laney Gibbs, though he is reluctant to accept it.

SAM:  I don’t want to shoot at this man. 

To which Laney, wise to the ways of the West, replies,

LANEY:  Suit yourself.  But he’s sure as hell’s gonna be shootin’ at you!

The gunfight ensues, the bullets smashing liquor bottles, shattering the mirror, scattering stacks of shot glasses.  The gunshots fly in all directions.  Except in the direction of the dueling adversaries.

Why?

Because I read in the Time-Life series The Old West that, quite often, the guns didn’t work.

But wait!  But wait.  (The second “But wait” read with the deflating confidence of a punctured balloon.)

I promise you, this observation arrived only recently, more than thirty years after the fact, when I was thinking of including a Best of the West mention in my “guillotine” story, deciding ultimately not to.

One of my unswerving “Rules of Comedy” – arguably my unswervingest – a dictum I have referenced on numerous occasions – I recall it appearing prominently in my critiquing the “food poisoning” scene in Bridesmaids, where a group of women started pooping and throwing up uncontrollably after eating at a restaurant – that dictum being that, in order to maximize the impact of a comedic payoff, without exception or deviation from the rule – all together class, I know you’ve been listening –

The payoff has to be set up!  

(Why?  So that the comedic payoff has an previously introduced context and does not confuse us by arriving entirely unexplained.)

Did I set up the “the guns don’t shoot straight” in my Best of the West “payoff moment”?

I unequivocally did not.

I am so ashamed.  You should see me.  My face has “shame” written all over it.

In my head, I had set up the moment – Research:  The guns don’t work.  Scene:  The guns don’t work in the shootout.  The problem was, I had set it up in my head, but nowhere in the script!  Did I consider inserting some suggestion early in the script that there were occasions when the guns in the Old West were not entirely reliable? 

I did not even think about it.

I had this “can’t miss”, what they call, “block comedy” scene in mind, involving a gunfight where the guns didn’t work, my intention, backed up by my research so I felt historically justified.  Somehow, that felt like enough. 

The problem was, the audience hadn’t read the research, delivering them a “funny gunfight” without a setup.

And you know what happened?

The audience still went nuts.  No setup whatsoever.  And the reaction was through the roof.

Proving…?

I do not know.  I am stymied, flummoxed, discombobulated and confused. 

I suppose I can fall back on this one:  It’s possible that, if I had set up the malfunctioning firearms, the response would have been even greater.  But the truth is, I can’t imagine how – the studio audience shrieked, howled and applauded, providing something I had written with one of the most extended laughs I have ever received. 

Of course you can’t prove what you didn’t do.  My rationalization is just me trying to defend my belief in the face of tangible evidence to the contrary, like the guys who say lowering taxes on the rich creates jobs, even though it rarely, if ever, has.  (I like to include other people’s disproven assertions along with my own, so I don’t feel quite so alone.)

Despite this inexplicable anomaly, I still believe that a moment – comedic or otherwise – needs to be set up to be maximally effective.  I nonetheless acknowledge that one time I didn’t.  And it didn’t seem to matter.

Apparently, this writing business is more complicated than it appears.
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Note:  This post was accidentally published two weeks ago.  If you read it then, you do not have to read it again today.  Upon further consideration, this note should probably have been at the top.    

"Cheating, And Its Close Relatives"

I could write this ten different ways – and I probably will –

You got there before me.

I could hear it coming, Italics Man.  The thing is, it’s an important issue.  And there are a lot of ways to come at it.  

What brings this subject to mind is that recently, in the same section of my morning newspaper – the front section, so it has to be important – I found two stories in two entirely different arenas

About cheating. 

One concerns a number of Olympic badminton teams who were found to have “thrown” early-tournament matches in order to be paired against weaker teams during subsequent rounds.

My first reaction was,

“Cheating in badminton?  Is nothing sacred anymore?”

I played badminton at camp.  It’s the only sport I was half decent at.  (The “birdie” didn’t move that fast, which gave me a reasonable shot at hitting it.)  I liked badminton; I appreciated it for giving me a chance.  It upsets me that Olympic competitors had shamefully tarnished a beloved sport.

I am informed, by someone “in the know”, that all (or at least the majority of) Olympian participants cheat.  (She herself doesn’t mind, because these enhancements cannot make them extraordinarily skillful. And since they’re all doing it, it cancels things out.

Okay, so the Olympics is awash in, what purists, at least, would regard as cheating.  Unfortunate but understandable.  If, as Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”, then, in the words of sports pundit Jim Rome, “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”

Fine.  All sports are now wrestling.  

But, as I learned that morning, it wasn't just sports.

I flip to the “op-ed” page of the front section of the newspaper, and I find a commentary written by Meghan Daum concerning a writer who had been discovered, among other offenses, making up quotes and then attributing them to the likes of Bob Dylan in his book about “creativity.”  Apparently, the writer got confused.  He was supposed to be talking about creativity, not engaging in it himself. 

The man cheated. 

Like the badminton people.

Or close to it.  As a journalist, Daum, while condemning the book writer, finds certain “adjustments” to interviewees’ statements understandable and forgivable.  Cleaning up their bad grammar?  So what?  Smoothing out a quote so it’ll read better?   No harm, no foul. 

I agree.  And in an interview I once did with Woody Allen, I was actually guilty of that myself.  (Woody had “sabotaged” my taped interview by pounding his baseball mitt so hard during it that, when I listened to it later, I could not hear anything he was saying.)

Daum tells us, “Even some of the most acclaimed traditional documentary films can push the limits.  Lauren Greenfield, director of the new release ‘The Queen of Versailles’ admitted in a recent interview to playing around with the order of a few scenes for the sake of narrative arc.”

Daum, if not outright forgives, apparently understands this.

I don’t.  

To me, that’s cheating. 

And it makes me grumpy.

I remember reading a Rolling Stone article showcasing Lorne Michaels where the chronological sequence of events was rejiggered, also for the sake,  I imagine, of “narrative arc.”  (Why else?  I mean, ”chronological sequence”?  How hard is that to get right?)

The story, chronicling Michaels’ meteoric rise tells us that after the Canadian Television series of specials called “The Hart And Lorne Terrific Hour” – Hart, being my brother – ended, Michaels relocated to Hollywood, and the rest is show business history. 

In fact, Hart and Lorne had already worked in Hollywood, as staff writers on two variety shows – The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, which was cancelled, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, for which their 13-week contract was not picked up.  They did “Hart And Lorne” after returning to Canada.

The Rolling Stone writer had it the other way around. 

The writer apparently preferred the “direct to the top” story arc.  When the actual trajectory was bumpier and more problematic.  (Which, to me, makes it a better story.) 

Daum places the discredited book writer’s transgression in the context of “our era”, explaining, “…his downfall is not alone.  What has also collapsed is our collective tolerance for complexity, our appetite for concepts that can’t be captured in catchy book titles or appropriated for corporate mantras and self-help seminars.  In the wake of all that, should we really be surprised when a writer opts for a made-up Dylan quote over the real thing?”

“Not be surprised”?  No.  But be more demanding?

Absolutely.

Unless, like those bad badminton people, you have abandoned the principle of doing things right.

"What I Liked About Last Friday's Post - Call It A Footnote"

It has come down to my critiquing – and by “critiquing” I mean praising – my own blog post.  It makes sense for the assignment to go to someone who’s familiar with my work, a man who can truly do the job justice.  Paying a compliment is not as easy as it looks.  It takes more than heartfelt sincerity.  Though that is definitely a good place to start.

In my day, I have endured more than my share of botched compliments – “I have to tell you, Earl, (a show I created) is my favorite sitcom ever.  That and (a show I can’t stand.)”  It then behooves me to force a smile and a “Thank you”, when I really mean, “What terrible crime have I committed that my punishment meant running into you.”

Hopefully, this exercise in self-praise is not entirely “ego overreach.”  There could be some valuable writing lessons involved as well.  Though I would not rule out “ego overreach” masquerading as writing lessons.  It’s tricky.  (I just wrote, “It’s trucky”, and I went back and fixed it.  It could be I’m uncomfortable about this whole thing.  Or just “u” is next to “i” on the keyboard.)

  

Last Friday, I wrote a blog post I really liked entitled, “Selling Madame Guillotine.”  (I would link you to the post, but I have forgotten how to do that.  It was the last post I wrote, so if you’re interested in reading it first – you don’t have to, but if you don’t, today’s post may very well be meaningless to you – it should be relatively easy to track down.)

“Selling Madame Guillotine” was, basically, a dialogue between Louis XVI, who was the King of France during the French Revolution, and a petitioner who was promoting a new method of execution – the guillotine. 

I like writing dialogue.  As opposed to essay writing, where the exposition is delivered in paragraph form, dialogue writing taps into my background as a television script writer.  “Selling Madame Guillotine” was constructed like a scene.  You put two people in a specific situation – a modern counterpart might be a door-to-door salesman and a customer, only instead of selling cleaning products to “the lady of the house”, the customer is the King of France and the salesman’s hawking a novel method of decapitation.  

So there’s that that I liked – a dialogue between the hotshot salesman and the reluctant consumer.  With a little “twist.”

I also enjoyed how I shaped the dialogue, building the “back-and-forth” organically, not rushing, but giving each “beat” and dramatic advancement the time it required.  The post turned out to be over 1600 hundred words long – though I did repeat “KING LOUIS XVI” and “INVENTOR” (the salesman) every time they spoke, so without that, it’s less.  Despite its length, I feared making it shorter would have hurried the storytelling.  The idea of breaking it into two posts gave me concerns about interrupting the momentum.  It seemed more successful as a single entity.  You don’t want, like, a seven-hour surgery, where they stop in the middle for a snack.

“Okay, where were we?  Is that the new heart we just put in, or the old one we need to take out?”

The characters’ representations were consistent with their intentions, the dialogue flowed normally, and the comedy – a least I found comedy in there – was, over all, less a “stretch” than, with a nudge towards humorosity, naturalistic and believable.

But what I appreciated the most about the undertaking is that “Selling Madame Guillotine” reflected a style of writing I like best.

Your own?

Very funny, Italics Man.  And not entirely off the mark.  Though there is a “chicken and egg” situation in play here.  Do I prefer a certain kind of writing, because it reflects the kind of writing I do?  Or have I trained myself to write that way, because it’s my favorite kind of writing?  Or, “Option Three” – and arguably the strongest – I write a certain way, because, due to genetics and upbringing, I have no choice in the matter, and I appreciate others – who also have no choice in the matter – who write in a similar fashion.`

I realize there are a lot of styles of comedy, and though I happen to value one style over the others, I am aware that this is a personal choice, rather than a “Natural Law Of The Comedic Universe.”

There are broader styles of comedy, there are subtler styles, there are punchier styles, there are raunchier styles…you know the list.  There are countless approaches to comedy, and superior and inferior versions of each.  I simply prefer – or am programmed to appreciate – this one:

A humor grounded firmly in reality.  In the case of “Selling Madame Guillotine”, researched reality.

Last July the Fourteenth, I read an article commemorating “Bastille Day” which made mention of the guillotine.  On “Bastille Day”, the people stormed the Bastille, which was a prison, and the French Revolution had its spark.  Subsequently, King Louis XVI, who remained, albeit precariously, on the throne, was presented with an idea for a new execution device that was promoted as being more efficient, more humane, and, most importantly for that period in history, egalitarian.

After reading the article, I did some research, which explained that, in pre-Revolutionary France, common people found guilty of capital offenses were hanged, while the condemned nobility were beheaded.  With the advent of the guillotine, executions would now all be handled exactly the same way.  

The revolutionaries hailed this “democratization of executions” as a significant “step forward”, and a victorious cause for celebration.

FRENCH ARISTOCRAT:  (BEREFT)  Tomorrow, I have a date with Madame Guillotine.

FRENCH PEASANT:  (EXCITED)  Me too!

FRENCH PEASANT NUMBER TWO:  Can you believe it?  We’re dying like the Big Boys!

FRENCH PEASANT NUMBER THREE:  They hung my father.  They hung my grandfather.  Look at me!  I’m going in style!

And, of course, the king, who personally authorized the new invention, himself, eventually, went “in style.”

Absurdity offers a rich repository for comedy.  Even funnier than the absurdity contrived by a writer, however? – The verifiable absurdity of actual people.

The situation tickles me.  So I wrote about. 

I just wanted to tip my hat to that effort, before moving on.

"Kindred Spirits"

I could write this ten different ways – and I probably will –

You got there before me.

I could hear it coming, Italics Man.  The thing is, it’s an important issue.  And there are a lot of ways to come at it.  

What brings this subject to mind is that recently, in the same section of the paper – the front section, so it has to be important – I found two stories in two entirely different arenas

About cheating. 

One concerns a number of Olympic badminton teams who were found to have “thrown” early-tournament matches in order to be paired against weaker teams during subsequent rounds.

My first reaction was,

“Cheating in badminton?  Is nothing sacred anymore?”

I played badminton at camp.  It’s the only sport I was half decent at.  (The “birdie” didn’t move that fast, which gave me a reasonable shot at hitting it.)  I liked badminton; I appreciated it for giving me a chance.  It upsets me that Olympic competitors had shamefully tarnished a beloved sport.

I am informed, by someone “in the know”, that all (or at least the majority of) Olympian participants cheat.  (She herself doesn’t mind, because these enhancements cannot make them extraordinarily skillful. And since they’re all doing it, it cancels things out.

Okay, so the Olympics is awash in, what purists, at least, would regard as cheating.  Unfortunate but understandable.  If, as Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”, then, in the words of sports pundit Jim Rome, “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”

Fine.  All sports are now wrestling.  Moving on.

I turn to the “op-ed” page of the front section of the newspaper, and I find a commentary written by Meghan Daum concerning a writer who had been discovered, among other offenses, making up quotes and then attributing them to the likes of Bob Dylan in his book about “creativity.”  Apparently, the writer got confused.  He was supposed to be talking about creativity, not engaging in it himself. 

The man cheated. 

Like the badminton people.

Or close to it.  As a journalist, Daum, while condemning the book writer, finds certain “adjustments” to interviewees’ statements understandable and forgivable.  Cleaning up their bad grammar?  So what?  Smoothing out a quote so it’ll read better?   No harm, no foul. 

I agree.  And in an interview I once did with Woody Allen, I was actually guilty of that myself.  (Woody had “sabotaged” my taped interview by pounding his baseball mitt so hard during it that, when I listened to it later, I could not hear anything he was saying.)

Daum tells us, “Even some of the most acclaimed traditional documentary films can push the limits.  Lauren Greenfield, director of the new release ‘The Queen of Versailles’ admitted in a recent interview to playing around with the order of a few scenes for the sake of narrative arc.”

Daum, if not outright forgives, apparently understands this.

I don’t.  

To me, that’s cheating. 

And it makes me grumpy.

I remember reading a Rolling Stone article showcasing Lorne Michaels where the chronological sequence of events was rejiggered, also for the sake,  I imagine, of “narrative arc.”  (Why else?  I mean, ”chronological sequence”?  How hard is that to get right?)

The story, chronicling Michaels’ meteoric rise tells us that after the Canadian Television series of specials called “The Hart And Lorne Terrific Hour” – Hart, being my brother – ended, Michaels relocated to Hollywood, and the rest is show business history. 

In fact, Hart and Lorne had already worked in Hollywood, as staff writers on two variety shows – The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, which was cancelled, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, for which their 13-week contract was not picked up.  They did “Hart And Lorne” after returning to Canada.

The Rolling Stone writer had it the other way around. 

The writer apparently preferred the “direct to the top” story arc.  When the actual trajectory was bumpier and more problematic.  (Which, to me, makes it a better story.) 

Daum places the discredited book writer’s transgression in the context of “our era”, explaining, “…his downfall is not alone.  What has also collapsed is our collective tolerance for complexity, our appetite for concepts that can’t be captured in catchy book titles or appropriated for corporate mantras and self-help seminars.  In the wake of all that, should we really be surprised when a writer opts for a made-up Dylan quote over the real thing?”

“Not be surprised”?  No.  But be more demanding?

Absolutely.

Unless, like those bad badminton people, you have abandoned the principle of doing things right.

"Selling 'Madame Guillotine'"

The Time:  1792.  Day.

The Place:  The Palace at Versailles, Home of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, etc.

King Louis is holding court.  It is “Inventors’ Day”, the day French inventors offer their proposals for His Majesty’s approval and, it is hoped, financial backing.

(WRITER’S NOTE:  Please read the following with a French accent.  I will not be bozzering weez zat.)

KING LOUIS XVI:  (EXTREMELY BORED)  Next.

INVENTOR:  Your Majesty.  I am pleased to offer for your consideration the latest device for the carrying out of executions.  I have brought detailed plans for my invention, which I am certain, in your abounding wisdom, Your Majesty will be easily able to understand.

KING LOUIS XVI:  You know the worst part about being the king?

INVENTOR:  What, Your Majesty?

KING LOUIS XVI:  You never know when people are flattering you.  It’s confusing, because, as it turns out, I do have “abounding wisdom.”  Which I do not entirely get credit for, as you would be obligated to say I had “abounding wisdom”, even if I didn’t.

INVENTOR: Oh, no, Your Majesty…

KING LOUIS XVI:  Really?  You mean, if I were a drooling idiot like many of my relatives, as a result of marrying their relatives, you would not still reference my “abounding wisdom”?  

INVENTOR:  To a man of your astuteness, it would be foolish to offer anything but the truth.

KING LOUIS XVI:  I see.  So you’d call me “a drooling idiot” to my face, if that, in fact, were the case? 

INVENTOR:  Well, I mean…

KING LOUIS XVI:  Be careful, now.  You are bringing me an instrument of execution; you do not want to be its first victim.  Which would be hilarious, though, arguably, not to you.  By the way, that may be the best part about being the king.  You can threaten the pantalones off of people.  The look on your face right now?  It’s priceless!

INVENTOR:  Your Majesty, I am aware that every inventor is permitted only a few minutes…

KING LOUIS XVI:  Okay, you’re off the hook.  But no more false flattery. 

INVENTOR:  No more, Your Majesty.

KING LOUIS XVI:  Oh, so you admit mentioning my “abounding wisdom” was false flattery!  (A BEAT, DURING WHICH THE INVENTOR IS “THIS CLOSE” TO PEEING IN HIS PANTALONES.  THE KING THEN TURNS REASONABLE.)  Forgive me, Monsieur Inventor.  I have an agile mind.  And sometimes, it is in sore need of a workout.  Now quickly to your invention, before your time is up, and we move on to the “self-powdering wig”, or some such. 

INVENTOR:  (REGAINING HIS COMPOSURE)  Your Majesty.  It is time to emerge from the Dark Ages of beheading and burning at the stake.

KING LOUIS XVI:  Why?

INVENTOR:  Excuse me, Your Majesty?

KING LOUIS XVI: I realize that, generally speaking, the Dark Ages is a good thing to emerge from, especially that bubonic plague nonsense, that was disgusting!  But I am not the type of monarch who believes that everything new is automatically superior to everything old.  There is something to be said about the “tried and true.”  And tradition.  Leave us not forget tradition.  The monarchy itself is a tradition.  Would you want us to “emerge” from that?

INVENTOR:  Certainly not.

KING LOUIS XVI:  “Certainly not” is right!  We cherish our traditions in this country, and rightfully so.  They have served us successfully in the past.  And there is no reason to believe they will not serve us equally successfully in the future.

INVENTOR:  With all due respect, Your Majesty, may I remind you that everything we now view as “tradition”, was itself once new.

KING LOUIS XVI:  Well, you’ve got me there, Monsieur Inventor.  Perhaps what I oppose is “new” for its own sake, something deemed an improvement not because it is actually better, but simply because its more recent.

INVENTOR: Allow me to assert my case for my revolutionary method of execution. 

KING LOUIS XVI:  I prefer you not say “revolutionary.”

INVENTOR:  My mistake.

KING LOUIS XVI:  A big one.  Proceed.

INVENTOR:  Thank you, Your Majesty.  Let us consider the currently employed executing options:  boiling in oil, burning at the stake, beheading, breaking the condemned on a wheel, and hanging, to name but five.  Now I readily acknowledge that all of these methods accomplish the task at hand – to render the guilty dead as the proverbial doornail.  And in that regard, they all do the trick.  However, and herein my new invention is an unquestionable upgrade, these approaches are disturbingly uncertain, and they are all, particularly in the case of breaking the condemned on the wheel, agonizingly painful.

KING LOUIS XVI:  Isn’t that the point?

VICTIM:  The point, I believe, is to execute the prisoner. 

KING LOUIS XVI:  Sure, if you want to be “technical” about it.  We are executing a criminal found guilty of a ‘capital’ offense – murder, rape, stealing a crust of bread – despicable crimes, all of them.  And being despicable and thus crimes we want to deter others from committing, we punish the offenders by – yes, killing them – but also by drawing out their deaths, as a form of punishment and simultaneously a warning:  “You commit such offenses, Monsieur Criminal, and we will break all your bones on a wheel, often several times over, or, should it be Our Royal Preference, have you jumping around for an excruciating number of minutes at the end of a rope.  Your proposed plan, Monsieur Inventor, ignores the entire element of punishing the miscreant along with killing him, the deterring of potential miscreants, and, most importantly, it leaves out completely the element of “spectator fun.”  But I’m only your Monarch.  So feel free to disagree.

A FAWNING COURTIER:  A rhyme, Your Majesty!  “Feel free to dis-agree!”

KING LOUIS XVI:  Forgive me, Monsieur Inventor.  That is his entire job.  To announce loudly every time I inadvertently make a rhyme.  (TO FAWNING COURTIER)  Kudos for your alertness.

FAWNING COURTIER:  Thank you, Your Majesty.

KING LOUIS XVI:   (TO INVENTOR)  My wife’s brother.  I’m considering executing her just to get rid of him.

INVENTOR:  Your Majesty, if I may.  My new invention is simply more efficient than its predecessors, and simultaneously more humane.

KING LOUIS XVI:  I have to tell you, you are not selling me with "humane."

INVENTOR:  Hear me out, Your Majesty.  I myself have witnessed beheadings wherein a single chop was not sufficient to finish the job.  At that point, things took an unpleasant turn, the condemned berating his executioner:  “Did you ever think of sharpening your axe?” is one thing I recall him saying, blood spurting from his not entirely severed neck.  Eventually, with the executioner hacking away, the attendant throng, no longer entertained, became dangerously unruly, pelting the hapless executioner with clods of earth, along verbal abuse, the condemned relegated to a mangled afterthought.  Believe me, Your Majesty, that event was no fun for anybody.

KING LOUIS XVI:  I guess not.  And your contraption?

INVENTOR:  (UNROLLING HIS PLANS FOR THE KING’S SCRUTINY)  A tall, upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended.  The blade is raised with a rope, the condemned’s neck is positioned beneath it, and when the blade is release and rapidly descends, the head is severed from the body in a single and certain chop.

KING LOUIS XVI:  (EXAMING THE PLANS AS HE LISTENS)  That could be fun.

INVENTOR:  I promise you, the “fun factor” is in no way diminished.  People will come and cheer and knit.

KING LOUIS XVI:  Knit? 

INVENTOR:  We have no idea why, but they do.  But the biggest selling point of my invention?  And a thing that’s increasingly popular these days?  It’s egalitarian.

KING LOUIS XVI:  I’m not following you.

INVENTOR:  I am sure Your Majesty is aware of the unrest in the country.

KING LOUIS XVI:  Do you really want to bring that up?

INVENTOR:  Only in this context.   The people are registering a noticeable impatience with the rising inequality between the aristocracy and themselves.

KING LOUIS XVI:  (RE: INVENTION)  And how exactly would this help?

INVENTOR:  I propose, with Your Majesty’s agreement of course, that instead of beheading noblemen and hanging peasants as we do now, we employ my new invention to execute everyone.  Think of it, Your Majesty.  Every criminal, be they high born or low, loses their life in precisely the same manner.

KING LOUIS XVI:  I think you’re on to something.  “We all die the same way”?  They’re going to love that!  You know, this may be exactly what I need to turn things around – “A symbolic gesture.”  Show the people that their king is listening to their complaints. 

INVENTOR:  They despise being broken on the wheel.

KING LOUIS XVI:  That’s over!  They’ll be executed like the “Big Boys” now.  I mean, how egalitarian is that!  Tell me, do you have a name for this killing device of yours?

INVENTOR:  I was thinking of naming it after you.

KING LOUIS XVI:  The “Louis”?  (TRYING IT OUT)  “You are condemned to the ‘Louis’!”  “Take him to the ‘Louis’!”  (AFTER A MOMENT)  I don’t think so.

INVENTOR:  I do have other possible…

KING LOUIS XVI:  What’s your name?

INVENTOR:  Monsieur Guillotin, Your Majesty. 

KING LOUIS XVI:  Good, then.  We shall name your invention after you.  Wait!  It amuses me to make it female.  Not “Guillotin” then, but “Guillotine.”  ‘Convey him to Madame Guillotine’.”  That’s perfect!  You know, Monsieur, our destinies take many surprising twists and turns.  Though conceived as a practical convenience, historians may someday record that the Monarchy of France, and its great but beleaguered king, Louis the Sixteenth, was unexpectedly saved by the invention of the guillotine.  None of us can see the future, of course, but I truly believe that to be the case. 

"Calibrating Cruelty"

At an extension class in Philosophy that I attended at UCLA a while back, I learned something that is my favorite kind of thing to learn: a fact or idea so “I never knew that” that it changes my entire way looking at things.  (This in a nutshell is why, despite my better judgment, I continue watching cable news – in hopes that I will be illuminated by an insight I did not previously possess.  I am not sure how long I’ve been watching cable news, but to date, if “illumination” were measured like “batting average”, I would long since have been designated to the low minor leagues, or, more likely, been given my outright release from the game.  I have not learned a thing.)

What I learned in Extension Philosophy concerned a precept from the Bible I imagine everyone is familiar with: 

“An eye for an eye.”

What I gleaned from the considerably-earlier-in-my-education Toronto Hebrew Day School interpretation of this precept was that “An eye for an eye” meant “balancing the books.”  Somebody knocks your eye out, you are entitled, and should feel in no way bad about, knocking their eye out. 

This may sound barbaric (especially for those of us with ocular concerns) but from an Old Testament-era standpoint, it was just.  It turns out, however, that, according to my Philosophy professor, the pronouncement was considerably more just than I’d realized.

Apparently, before “An eye for an eye”, injured parties whose eyes had been severely tampered with would retaliate by killing their assailant, in effect, making the equation not “An eye for an eye”, but “Death for an eye.”

It was at this point that the Old Testament intervened, bringing balance and compassion to the hitherto unregulated arena of retributive bloodletting.

“To the Victim: 

We realize you are understandably upset about the recent and entirely unjustified removal of your eye, and by the way, our heartfelt condolences.  Nobody likes losing an eye.  Functioning ‘uni-ocularly’ interferes with your perspective, and makes you walk into trees.  Plus, it doesn’t look nice and requires you to wear a patch and be mistaken for a pirate who has lost his way and wound up in a Middle-Eastern desert. 

But we are the Bible.  And our business – nay, our duty – is to insure that justice and fairness hold sway and dominion upon this land.

“Therefore, we decree that…wait before we decree anything, we need to go on record as opposing all gratuitous eye mutilation whatsoever.  

In fact, coming down definitively against gratuitous eye mutilation was actually in the first draft, as a sort of preamble to ‘An eye for an eye’, but it was taken out in editing, because the Bible was getting too long.  Besides, there was a faction of our editorial board who believed that the opposition to eye mutilation, like the opposition to, say, urinating down a well, was ‘understood’, and therefore redundant.  I myself am not certain, especially in the Age of the Sharp Pointed Stick, that that is actually the case.  But, as they say, though not in the Bible, you win some, and you lose some.

“Okay.  Where were we?  Oh, yes.  We are here to tell you, in this insert which you may take as a Biblical commentary – call it, ‘Second Thoughts About What We Put In The Bible’ – that when we – and by ‘we’, I mean God, though if you’re wondering who I am, you may think of me as a Divinely-inspired commentator, I mean this stuff is pouring right out of me, I have no idea where it’s coming from, and ‘from God’ is not an unreasonable assumption. 

Okay, so, recapitulating here, and returning to the thread, when the Bible says, ‘An eye for an eye’, our intention is to sanction, not the permission to blind, and certainly not the encouragement to blind, but rather and only to delineate the specific parameters of overall retribution.

“What we are saying is, that when you are, for want of a better description, ‘un-eyed’, the appropriate and only acceptable response is to find the perpetrator, or, if you’re not feeling up to it, or are depressed because you just lost an eye, to dispatch a surrogate to find the perpetrator, and then, not kill the perpetrator – that is entirely too much, as the perpetrator demonstrably did not kill you, so “No” to killing, okay?

Instead, you are permitted only to take their eye out.  Call it punishment, call it revenge, call it, “How do you like it, huh, huh!” – you are legally and morally justified to go for it.

“Biblical Law requires that the injurer be injured to the extent that they themselves have injured, and no further!  That’s the new idea.  And we think it’s a good one.

Future generations may carp, saying, ‘Though it is certainly true that you that have moved the ball forward, you are still, however, supporting poking somebody’s eye out, rather than leaving things to the authorities.’  Let me say only in response, ‘Judge not our times, lest future generations judge your times, and just see how that feels, Mister!’

“We have taken a step in, what we believe, is a decent and moral direction.  An eye for an eye, and that’s it.  It doesn’t have to be the same eye – we don’t want to overregulate here – but just one.  And then you go home.  And again this probably goes without saying, but it’s also ‘An ear for a ear’, ‘A nose for a nose’, ‘A chin for a chin’ – I do not know exactly how you ‘de-chin’ someone but leave us cover all our bases – and so on, down ‘a toe for a toe.’

“Not excluding, of course, a life for a life.  We are still doing that.  We are not revolutionaries.  Although sometimes, you execute the wrong person, but what’re you gonna do?  It is not a perfect world.

“Okay, so are we clear on this?  They take out your eye, you stop at taking out their eye.  That’s the Bible talking.  Though, generically, it’s the right thing to do.  How do I know?  Because of the palpable sense of elation we had when we came up with it. 

“You arrive at the right precept, you immediately feel better.”

(FULL DISCLOSURE:  This was meant to be an introduction for something else.  But as sometimes happens, it took on a life of its own.  Tomorrow, what today was supposed to introduce: 

The promotion of the guillotine as a humane form of execution.  

"Summer Times - 'Changeover Day'"

The majority of campers stayed for two months.  But some campers – I imagined the poorer ones – stayed for only one month.  My snobbery concerning this matter was exceeded only by my inaccuracy.  In reality, a number of campers went home after a month, not because they could not afford to stay for two, but because their families, often the wealthiest ones, would spend the second month vacationing in Europe.  (I cannot specifically date when I started being wrong about things.  I only know the tradition continues to this very day.  And I am unhopeful about the future.)

During the “Changeover Period”, there was a two-day interim, when the “First Monthers” had left but the “Second Monthers” had not yet arrived.  (Why they didn’t simply use one bus, where the arriving campers got off and the departing campers got on, I have no idea.  They may have needed time to fumigate the bus from the arriving campers’ throw-up.  But that’s only a guess.) 

I recall one summer, when, having only six original campers in my cabin, four of them went home, leaving an entire cabin occupied by two campers – myself and Jerry Wiseman. 

(Historical Note:  Longtime readers may find this name familiar.  I previously mentioned Jerry Wiseman in the context of a hike, where Jerry, trekking at the back of an extended column of campers, got stung by a bee, and after he was treated and the hike resumed, Jerry Wiseman got stung a second time, driving home the lesson of the hilarious arbitrariness of life.  I could have learned the same lesson if I’d been stung twice, but I doubt if it would have been equally as funny.)

Six campers.  And four of them went home.

It was the best time I ever had. 

A cabin with two campers in it provided flexibility unimaginable in a larger group.  Take voting for which activities to request for the following day, as we would did every night, before “Lights Out.”  With the full cabin, I was one vote out of six.  Meaning “doing nothing” was continually outvoted by doing something I hated and was terrible at. 

Even though “doing nothing” was not really an option, I now had only one person to talk into “doing very little.”  And Jerry Wiseman was not difficult to persuade. 

Being a “Cabin of Two” made us virtually immune to obligation.  Another cabin challenged us to a lacrosse match, which would guarantee bruises and lacerations, due to the “accidental” smashing of lacrosse racquets against our shins – “Sorry, there’s only two of us.” – and they’d move on, challenging a cabin that could field a more “team-worthy” compliment of players.  And lacerate their shins.

With the departure of the “First Monthers”, our cabin, once congested, now felt spacious and commodious.  There was less clutter, and less to clean up.  And less chance of a hostile cabin-mate “accidentally” jabbing a broom handle into my ribs.  No chance, in fact.  The mean ones had all gone home.  Jerry and I actually got along.   

Having fewer campers to supervise, the counselors seemed looser and less adversarial.  It was like World War I, when the soldiers on both sides emerged from their trenches and sang Christmas songs together.  I don’t know if we were elevated to “counselor status” or they reverted to “camper status”, but, for a short period of time, the delineation became seriously blurred.   And discipline noticeably lessened.

EARL:   Do we have to wash tonight?

COUNSELOR:  It’s up to you.

I didn’t wash.

Mealtime was the best.  The counselors sat at the ends of the table, leaving Jerry and me sole occupancy of an entire bench.  We could stretch out if we wanted to, take catnaps between courses.  Of course, there was more food for each of us, but I didn’t eat the food, so there was a lot more for Jerry.  The exception?  Dessert arrived, and after the counselors had taken their slices, Jerry and I would “fifty-fifty” an entire platter of cake. 

Sadly, this heavenly arrangement lasted just two days.  Then the “Second Monthers” arrived, and the party was over. 

Second month campers – or as the Senior Boys called the females as they filed off the bus, “New Meat” – were, almost generically, uncomfortable.  First, they arrived at camp feeling “butterflies of unfamiliarity”, which for us, having been there a month, were already long gone.  Second – though the problem was less seriou when joining a cabin with two campers in it – they were required to fit in with a group who had bonded, and already liked – or hated – each other. 

Which brings me to “Cuppy.”  A nickname, tortured into English from an obscure.  Yiddish counterpart.

“Cuppy”, moon-faced, with signs of pre-adolescent balding, was not only a “Second Monther”, he had never been to camp before at all.  This is a particularly difficult adjustment.  For which “Cuppy” was conscientiously prepared.

Second – because “first” needs more going into – after “Lights Out”, “Cuppy” would campaign for acceptability, by regaling his cabin-mates with a series of what would at the time be considered, “dirty” jokes, their punchlines were invariably delivered in a Yiddish-inflected accent.

More significantly – which I justifiable label “First”, though I am writing about it second – “Cuppy” arrived attired in a “Letter Man” windbreaker, almost entirely covered with sewn-on badges, delineating championship-level participation in an elaborate range of sports – baseball, basketball, hockey (both ice and field) football, swimming, track-and-field.   In a jock-impressed environment, these badges signaled instant acceptability.

What we quickly discovered, however, during our first scheduled period of basketball, was that “Cuppy”, despite his myriad decorations, was seriously uncoordinated and entirely inept.  The first time he got the ball, “Cuppy” immediately dribbled it off his foot.  

It was the same with everything “Cuppy’s” badges announced he excelled at.  There was no sport at which he was not terrible.  He was actually worse than I was.  And my windbreaker had nothing sewn on it but pockets.

My curiosity piqued, after we became pals – and we remained so for years thereafter –  “Cuppy” revealed that he had stolen all the badges from his school’s storeroom, and had his mother sew them on his “Letter Man” jacket, which he also pilfered, in order to win favor among the strangers whose company he was about to join. 

Such was the pressure on the “Second Month” camper; you would misrepresent yourself with unearned badges.  Won over by his gentle nature, intelligence and ready humor, I immediately forgave him for his subterfuge. 

I did not, however, forgive him, or his fellow “Second Monthers” for showing up.

And neither, I believe, did Jerry Wiseman.