Paver and Presenter Yawn and Prize
Now the man
without a wig drew up a chair in front of the microwave oven as if it was a TV
and watched the macaroni and grits boil over the side of the bowl inside the
oven. His eye betrayed an involvement
with the proceedings similar to that I must have displayed watching The Six Million Dollar Man as a
child. I had the doll and
everything. You could roll up the rubber
skin on his right arm to do work on the expensive electronic components
beneath.
I was
watching Lover Come Back the other day
specifically to absorb the details of Rock Hudson’s apartment décor. The movie was made in 1961 and the apartment
displays the best that a highly paid bachelor in early sixties Manhattan could hope for in design. Most of it I liked, especially the abstract
expressionist art on the walls, but, as with even the most modern of
presentations, there were hangovers from previous eras (the past) that I just
didn’t care for and, seen from my perspective fifty years on, found jarring. Painted wood is a prime example. Especially wood painted salmon. A lot of black too in that apartment. Flowery gold ornamentation no good either. Mirrors bordered in golden flowery wooden
frames. Still, I’d take it.
The
addition of two boiled eggs to the bowl was like a poorly conceived return to a
classic series. Rock Hudson shaved off his moustache and joined
Doris Day on a cross-country bus ride back to where it all began. The Krautrock soundtrack conveyed an
atmosphere of oppressive dread. Despite
earnest prayers, the gypsy statue could not swap their bodies back.
.
