Drama surrounded "A Dog's Purpose." Weeks before its release, Marc and Dan began counting down the days; various viewing scenarios and ideas for guest lists were entertained. Marc suggested, half-jokingly, that a midnight screening on the date of the opening would be appropriate. But disaster struck four days before the release date. PETA--or some similar organization--released footage that appeared to suggest that dogs had been abused on-set. You saw a dog seemingly half-drowning, and there was a gruff male voice saying, "Keep him in the water! Keep him in!" Or something like that. A boycott was demanded. How could a dog-lover support such a film? Dennis Quaid became involved. Allegations flew back and forth. It emerged that PETA--or a PETA-ish organization--had doctored footage to make the dog look as if he were suffering, when in fact he was not suffering. Or at least Marc and Dan accepted this version of the story. (All of this was like the Kimye/Taylor feud. Taylor implied that Kimye had edited a phone-call conversation to make it look more damaging than it really was. But the truth isn't terribly important; what matters is the manner in which events are perceived. PETA may have done real damage to "A Dog's Purpose." Or maybe it just wasn't a compelling piece of filmmaking. In any case, Dan and Marc did see it--in the company of their tiny, pre-literate cousin, who yawned ten minutes in and asked, "Are we really going to stay until this is over?" Early in the movie, a dog died on an operating table, and Dan found himself weeping and having uncomfortable thoughts about mortality.)
Other dogs on film: The little ghost-dog in "The Nightmare Before Christmas," the fabled Marley, of "Marley and Me," the tiny pooch that belongs to Helen in Mike White's "Enlightened." Not all of these dogs prompted commentary from Marc. He seemed uninterested in seeing "Marley and Me," perhaps because he knew the fate of Marley in the film's final minutes. After "A Dog's Purpose," Marc purchased a paperback copy of "A Dog's Journey," the sequel, though he reported, with a shrug, that it was "more of the same." Dan studied the book jacket and envied the author--who seemed to have spun gold from some treacle about his pets, and about various possessive musings regarding his twenty-something daughter (i.e. "Eight Simple Rules for Marrying My Daughter.") "A Dog's Purpose" became an acronym in the Marc/Dan household--"ADP." It is evoked--with a certain campy reverence--off and on, as a kind of cultural touchstone, in that household, to this very day.
***
It's Monday in New York City!
Another hundred people just got off of the train,
And came up through the ground,
While another hundred people just got off of the bus,
And are looking around
At another hundred people who got off of the plane,
And are looking at us,
Who got off of the train,
And the plane, and the bus,
Maybe yesterday.
It's a city of strangers
Some come to work, some to play
A city of strangers
Some come to stare, some to stay
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks
And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks
And they meet at parties through the friends-of-friends, who they never know
"Will you pick me up, or do I meet you there, or shall we let it go?
Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain
Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?
Look, I'll call you in the morning, or my service'll explain."
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
It's a city of strangers
Some come to work, some to play
A city of strangers
Some come to stare, some to stay
And every day
Some go away...
Or they find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks
And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks
And they meet at parties through the friends-of-friends, who they never know
"Will you pick me up, or do I meet you there, or shall we let it go?
Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain
Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?
Look, I'll call you in the morning, or my service'll explain."
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
Another hundred people just got off of the train.
Do you find this song therapeutic? It's a trial to ride the subway in New York. On one trip, you might encounter the elephantine homeless man, draped in a shit-stained carpet-rag, who will actually rub the rag upon you as he passes; the subway conductor who closes the doors while people are still getting off (never mind the people attempting to get on); the additional, overly-passive subway conductor who cannot bring himself to close the doors, such that the annoying pre-close bell-clang happens over and over again (eight times!), without a subsequent door-closing, like when you're masturbating and repeatedly just seconds from completion; the anxious man who continuously screams into his cell phone underground, because now you can scream into your cell phone underground; the bawling baby; the asshole with the boom box; the miserable Upper West Side matron who seems to take offense when you read something funny and you quietly laugh. Sondheim sometimes goes into intelligent-alien mode, when he stands far, far away from the city and peers down on it, as if aping God. "Another Hundred People" is a precursor for "Sunday"; both ask us to see the rituals of city life in a new, detached way, perhaps with a sense of humor or even a sense of wonder. We can "find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks, by the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks"; we can "walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks." An urban park is: "cool/blue/triangular water." It's: "soft/green/elliptical grass." It's "arrangements of shadow," and "the verticals of trees"; it's "flecks of light, and dark, and parasols." Curiously, both "Sunday" and "Another Hundred People" force Sondheim to do odd things with syntax. Remember: Sondheim is fond of clipped, simple sentences: "The Ben I'll never be--who remembers him?" "The life I'll never live couldn't make me sing. Could it?" But, in "Sunday," it's as if the mass of urban data Sondheim is processing requires its own weird syntax; "Sunday" is the one-and-only song that Sondheim ever wrote that counts as a single sentence--just one, endless, Faulknerian sentence. And look at the start of "Another Hundred People"--an extraordinarily complex series of clauses, with an "and" and an "at" and a "while" and a "who" and a "maybe." Your head spins. Form underlines content; the complexity of the city is conveyed through the complexity of the opening sentence.
A few more notes on "Another Hundred." "Some come to stare, some to stay"; the "st-" sound is picked up nicely in "stay." You can visit Manhattan as an interloper; you can also, conversely, visit as a Broadway Baby, determined to put down roots. "And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never know. [Should be "whom," but maybe Marta is not a pedant.] Do I pick you up or should I meet you there, or shall we let it go? Did you get my message, cause I looked in vain? Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain? Look, I'll call you in the morning or my service will explain..." I love these lines as an example of SHOW, DON'T TELL. Half-acquaintances introduce us to people who could change our lives. See how easy it is to miss a connection, to have one foot out the door? Ambivalence, cautiousness manifests itself as "looking in vain," inserting an escape clause via the possibility of rain, adding an "out" ("If I *don't* call, which I swear I will, my service will explain...") This song seemed impossibly exciting to me when I lived in North Tonawanda, when I had not yet spent fifteen weary years in NYC, years of Louis CK-esque entanglements with that homeless man and his shit-rug. The last word on this song: Form underlines content, yet again. Marta appears to stall at the end : "Another hundred people just got off of the train and another hundred people just off of the train and another hundred people just got off of the train. Another hundred people just got off of the train." What is happening here? Is Sondheim--so imaginative--suddenly, bizarrely at a loss for new words? No, he wants to make a point. At the start of each repeated iteration of this sentence--very literally--"another hundred people" did actually just get off a train somewhere in NYC. And: again. And: again. And: again. Marta's words meld with the rhythm of New York: in a way, she becomes the onslaught of new people, the "city of strangers." She doesn't pass judgment; she just wants you to consider, briefly, the weirdness of the place where you live. And the song ends. If you're in the right mood, then Sondheim has just left you a gift; for a few minutes, he has hopped into your life and grabbed control of your point of view, and he has "re-enchanted the ordinary."
***
It's Monday in New York City!
Another hundred people just got off of the train,
And came up through the ground,
While another hundred people just got off of the bus,
And are looking around
At another hundred people who got off of the plane,
And are looking at us,
Who got off of the train,
And the plane, and the bus,
Maybe yesterday.
It's a city of strangers
Some come to work, some to play
A city of strangers
Some come to stare, some to stay
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks
And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks
And they meet at parties through the friends-of-friends, who they never know
"Will you pick me up, or do I meet you there, or shall we let it go?
Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain
Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?
Look, I'll call you in the morning, or my service'll explain."
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
It's a city of strangers
Some come to work, some to play
A city of strangers
Some come to stare, some to stay
And every day
Some go away...
Or they find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks
And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks
And they meet at parties through the friends-of-friends, who they never know
"Will you pick me up, or do I meet you there, or shall we let it go?
Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain
Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?
Look, I'll call you in the morning, or my service'll explain."
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
Another hundred people just got off of the train.
Do you find this song therapeutic? It's a trial to ride the subway in New York. On one trip, you might encounter the elephantine homeless man, draped in a shit-stained carpet-rag, who will actually rub the rag upon you as he passes; the subway conductor who closes the doors while people are still getting off (never mind the people attempting to get on); the additional, overly-passive subway conductor who cannot bring himself to close the doors, such that the annoying pre-close bell-clang happens over and over again (eight times!), without a subsequent door-closing, like when you're masturbating and repeatedly just seconds from completion; the anxious man who continuously screams into his cell phone underground, because now you can scream into your cell phone underground; the bawling baby; the asshole with the boom box; the miserable Upper West Side matron who seems to take offense when you read something funny and you quietly laugh. Sondheim sometimes goes into intelligent-alien mode, when he stands far, far away from the city and peers down on it, as if aping God. "Another Hundred People" is a precursor for "Sunday"; both ask us to see the rituals of city life in a new, detached way, perhaps with a sense of humor or even a sense of wonder. We can "find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks, by the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks"; we can "walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks." An urban park is: "cool/blue/triangular water." It's: "soft/green/elliptical grass." It's "arrangements of shadow," and "the verticals of trees"; it's "flecks of light, and dark, and parasols." Curiously, both "Sunday" and "Another Hundred People" force Sondheim to do odd things with syntax. Remember: Sondheim is fond of clipped, simple sentences: "The Ben I'll never be--who remembers him?" "The life I'll never live couldn't make me sing. Could it?" But, in "Sunday," it's as if the mass of urban data Sondheim is processing requires its own weird syntax; "Sunday" is the one-and-only song that Sondheim ever wrote that counts as a single sentence--just one, endless, Faulknerian sentence. And look at the start of "Another Hundred People"--an extraordinarily complex series of clauses, with an "and" and an "at" and a "while" and a "who" and a "maybe." Your head spins. Form underlines content; the complexity of the city is conveyed through the complexity of the opening sentence.
A few more notes on "Another Hundred." "Some come to stare, some to stay"; the "st-" sound is picked up nicely in "stay." You can visit Manhattan as an interloper; you can also, conversely, visit as a Broadway Baby, determined to put down roots. "And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never know. [Should be "whom," but maybe Marta is not a pedant.] Do I pick you up or should I meet you there, or shall we let it go? Did you get my message, cause I looked in vain? Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain? Look, I'll call you in the morning or my service will explain..." I love these lines as an example of SHOW, DON'T TELL. Half-acquaintances introduce us to people who could change our lives. See how easy it is to miss a connection, to have one foot out the door? Ambivalence, cautiousness manifests itself as "looking in vain," inserting an escape clause via the possibility of rain, adding an "out" ("If I *don't* call, which I swear I will, my service will explain...") This song seemed impossibly exciting to me when I lived in North Tonawanda, when I had not yet spent fifteen weary years in NYC, years of Louis CK-esque entanglements with that homeless man and his shit-rug. The last word on this song: Form underlines content, yet again. Marta appears to stall at the end : "Another hundred people just got off of the train and another hundred people just off of the train and another hundred people just got off of the train. Another hundred people just got off of the train." What is happening here? Is Sondheim--so imaginative--suddenly, bizarrely at a loss for new words? No, he wants to make a point. At the start of each repeated iteration of this sentence--very literally--"another hundred people" did actually just get off a train somewhere in NYC. And: again. And: again. And: again. Marta's words meld with the rhythm of New York: in a way, she becomes the onslaught of new people, the "city of strangers." She doesn't pass judgment; she just wants you to consider, briefly, the weirdness of the place where you live. And the song ends. If you're in the right mood, then Sondheim has just left you a gift; for a few minutes, he has hopped into your life and grabbed control of your point of view, and he has "re-enchanted the ordinary."
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