In my older and more reflective years, to paraphrase Fitzgerald, I have had occasion to meet up with young men and women who are seeking advice as to how to find work in the entertainment industry. Their goal is often to get into writing, an area in which I have never made a living, and, on those occasions when I have dipped my toes into that pond, have had a tortured relationship.
Yesterday, I enjoyed a long leisurely lunch with a young man whose connection to me extends back to his grandfather, who was both an English teacher and theater director to me when I was in high school. This young man has written an engaging script, rough, but promising — and he sought my thoughts and feedback. Normally, I would share some general and superficial thoughts as this is not really my milieu, and then connect the would-be scribe to a friend more experienced in that area of the business. This time was different. Perhaps the surreal nature of the piece appealed to my offbeat instincts. Maybe it was the connections in the work to our current political climate and the cautionary tale it suggested which engaged me. In any instance, I was moved to discuss the piece with him at length and even tossed in a few of my overarching philosophies.
When it comes to entertainment, and particularly television history, many who know me are well-accustomed to my pontifications and diatribes, which slowly weave together past precedents and the current state of affairs. Eventually I might come upon some good points, leading one very patient friend to be so kind as to dub me a “televisionary” — and he occasionally reminds me of a passing statement or prediction from my past which eventually came to pass.
Most of the time, however, I am tuned out early. Mostly it is the “young and hungry,” eager to make any sense of show business, who are tolerant enough to put up with my long-winded pondering. Given the increasingly short attention spans and impatience of Americans in general and the insistence on getting to the point right away, I am no longer taken aback when I am dismissed early from a conversation.
So what was different about yesterday?
I remember very early in my career trying to engage those for whom I worked into discussions that were, “way beyond my pay grade.” I intended neither to show off to, nor “tell off” my superiors, but I did hope to engage them and discuss ideas that were newly percolating in my head and get perspective from those truly “in the know.” As they were complex and still forming thoughts, it would take me some time to zero in on what I was really asking. Before I got very far into the discussion, I was often met with a “get to your point” — and usually gave up the attempt in a timid retreat. It wasn’t so much that my bosses were disagreeing with what I had to ask, it was just becoming the way of the world that being succinct and sparse in expression (and if you have read this far, you know that will never be my strength) was becoming the dominant way to exchange ideas.
Such impatience has spread from the business world into the information and political arenas. In the last few decades, we have seen news coverage evolve and have become all too accustomed to the dreaded sound bite— that single sentence, or better still phrase, which can be repeated, like an advertising slogan, to represent complex and intricate social and political thoughts. A paradox, to be sure.
Worse still, we now have a sitting president who strings together disjointed phrases masquerading as sentences. In presser situations, both formal and informal, he rarely allows any question to be finished, seizing on a starting phrase or interjecting his opinions before a thought is even realized from the reporter. Whether he is attempting deflection, rudeness or just Machiavellian control of the situation — his redundant talking points of the day rapidly become the answer to nearly every question — whether it fits the topic (almost) asked or not.
There is a wonderful episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “Time Enough At Last.” It depicts a future (or perhaps present) in which very few pay attention to the written word and complex ideas. A nebbishy bank clerk, hauntingly portrayed by Burgess Meredith, is an avid bookworm, but must sneak his reading out of the sight of his workmates and even his wife. Whenever he tries to engage someone on a literary topic, he is ridiculed, dismissed or worse. His wife even tortures him by inviting him to read from one of his beloved poetry books aloud to her, only to have him find that she has obliterated each and every word on every page.
Seeking solace with his tomes, he had a habit of sneaking into the basement bank vault on his lunches to read his book or the morning paper. On one occasion, he dozes off from his reading and, as the paper flutters to the floor, we read the headline, “H-BOMB CAPABLE OF TOTAL DESTRUCTION.” Moments later he is shaken awake as the bombs reign down on the streets above him, but he is spared by the protection of the vault around him.
When he finally surfaces, he is surrounded by destruction and devastation and soon realizes that there is no one else left. Despondent and lonely, he contemplates taking his own life when he comes upon the remains of a library. Though now piles of rubble, he is able to extract books from the wreckage which were left intact . As he stacks them up around him, he realizes that there are more than enough books there for him to read, undisturbed, for whatever life he has remaining — “… and the best thing, the very best thing of all,” he says, “… is there’s time now… there’s all the time I need and all the time I want. Time, time, time. There’s time enough at last.” As it is an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” there is a twist ending which, if you’ve not seen it, I’ll not ruin, but this moment of satisfaction — finally allowed to discover, to ponder, to extract the intricacies of life and make sense of them in all their complexities — this is a moment to savor.
Granted, yesterday’s topics of discussion with my friend, the nascent writer, were not earth-shattering, but thanks, to the areas touched in his work, we were able to expand on ideas and world issues and even toss in a little entertainment history and show-biz advice.
And yesterday, there was time, there was time enough at last.
