Ishiguro always put his fingers on some pulse. First he was known for “The Remains of the Day”. Then went on with “Never Let Me Go”, followed by “Klara and the Sun”.
He knows how we feel. Claustrophobic. Hemmed in. By the forces beyond our control e.g. industrialization and digitization.
Now with a play adaptation, he re-introduces “Living” to Broadway.
As if we haven’t at all noticed (I drive by a fleet of Amazon trucks every day) the sudden scale-up of what Charlie Chaplin had nailed down in Les Temps Modernes.
The daily chores. Stack-up habits and sudden temptations.
All the while, inflation creeps up (thank you Saudi), population increases (thank you Bill Gates and his vaccine push) and Chinse cheap goods flush the Mall of America.
We know something is missing. We just don’t know what it is, and if IDed, whether or not we can afford the opportunity cost. Papillon knows this well when in solitary confinement. Freedom and the need to be understood.
So Meta and social media know this. Leverage and monetize it. Blog all you want. Read to your delight. But someone needs to collect, deposit and withdraw.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tried to go “straight”. While discussing an alt lifestyle, they found they couldn’t ranch nor could they farm. Heck, one guy can’t shoot, and the other, swim. Back to robbing banks, with changed venue: Bolivia.
And so it goes. We deserve this sterile life. Albeit large percentage of it were inherited. The rest? blame it on the school system, society and government (many of which rightly deserved for being dysfunctional) and finally, as Ishiguro noticed, the machine.
You and me and the IT ( milo) named Boo. Traveling the land.
Tops down. 101 Hwy summer breeze “makes me feel fine”… We need the “Hug Squad” back on Haight-Ashbury Street. We need to tell each other jokes, between toasts e.g. Woody Allen “I have a brother who thinks he were a chicken”….replies the therapist “why don’t you turn him in?”…”cause I still need the eggs”….
Life as we know it. Part inherited and part invented. It Won’t last forever. The more mistakes, the more misery. On average 76 years span after Covid. No time to drink that beer. Join the AARP. You and me and the IT named Boo. All the unrealized dreams and talks of making it in Australia, as the said pair chatted before going out in a blaze. Freeze frame. To seem to live forever in mid-air, like Cara in Fame. “ I Want to live forever…” “ people knowing my name”.
Our “remains of the day” through a hazy blaze.
Thang Nguyen 555 