Here Comes the Beep

Los Angeles, California 

Before I committed to studying literature in college, I began taking classes in films. It was actually kicked off with a Film as Literature class, after which I enrolled in other classes in the department of Cinema. It wasn't only for the fun of watching films in class rather than listening to what were often droning lectures, though that was certainly a nice part of the deal. But it was more that I became interested in film as an art through these classes. In my History of the Cinema class, I first saw silent films and foreign films. I had already developed an interest in classic films which I saw on television, often late at night. But the class presented wide-ranging films from Méliès' A Trip to the Moon through Chaplin's The Gold Rush, Renoir's The Rules of the Game, and later, Truffaut's Jules and Jim. It would be interesting to find the syllabus for that course. We must have seen ten or more films, but I can only remember a few. It was during that course, after writing a movie review of one of the screen versions of The Great Gatsby, that I briefly thought of pursuing a career as a film critic. What would have been a much better fit for me, however, would have been to continue to study film history. And I did think about returning to grad school for this at a crossroads in my life. But life and marital circumstances were a huge obstacle to that. And maybe, additionally, I was my own obstacle.

Still, films continued to loom large in my legend. I recently wrote about how my late husband and I utilized lines from films for marital banter. In fact, his nickname for me was Butch, from a line in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (You just keep thinking, Butch. That's what you're good at.). Dialog was also cribbed from Casablanca (Alright, I will.) Young Frankenstein (Hello, Handsome!), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (He raped Thrace thrice?!?) Forrest Gump (One less thing.), Bronco Billy (Must you, Bronco Billy?), Wonder Boys (Is there a story there? There is, but it's not very interesting.), The Great Race (The Great Leslie has escaped with a chicken?!?), Moonstruck (There will be nothing left!), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Indiana, let it go.). Ok, way too many examples, and yet there are many more.

My friend, Lynnette, is also a classic film fan and we often fall into these quotations as well. One of our favorite lines is from The Awful Truth, when Irene Dunne's character is trying to spoil her soon-to-be-ex-husband's romance with a socialite (husband played by Cary Grant). She shows up at the socialite's family mansion pretending to be his wrong-side-of-the-tracks, floosyish sister. When she is offered a drink she accepts by replying that she had a few on her way there, but they're startin' to wear off... if you know what I mean. It is a favorite film of both of ours, and my mom also loved it. She first turned me onto it way back when.

Right now, the scene in the film that keeps coming back to me is from Say Anything. It's a sweet film with that memorable scene of John Cusack, as Lloyd Dobler, holding the boom box over his head which is playing Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes. Yeah. Women really get that scene. But that's not the one that keeps popping into my head. It's the last scene (spoiler alert) when they are finally on the plane together on their way to London. It's been a hurdled path to get there, and they are both clearly jumpy with both the anticipation as well as her anxiety about flying and his concerned attention to that and to her. Their eyes are both focused on the seatbelt sign, waiting with intense concentration for it to go off. Here comes the beep.

This morning I heard that Omicron is beginning to level off. And that locally we can expect case numbers to drop next week, and are on track for the number of hospitalizations to slack off the following week. This is good news on a number of levels. We have a plan to go back to dancing the second week of February. We have our eyes on that prize. But also, this Omicron period has been extremely hard for those of us who have conscientiously backed off of activities. As I have written before, that little window of freedom last year, which was snatched back away from us, has made this all the more challenging. I miss my friends! I miss being in restaurants!! I MISS DANCING!!!

But somehow, I am feeling hopeful and full of nervous anticipation. Despite all of the idiots around us who haven't taken this seriously, I think, I hope, that we will move to endemic phase shortly. So I have my eyes on that, just as Lloyd and Diane have their eyes on the seatbelt sign. It's going to happen. It's going to happen any moment. Here it comes... Here comes the beep!