Part I of this article can be found here.
Having spent my childhood in the early sixties entombed in Texas, I thought I’d already handled the worst that the public educational system could throw at me.
Holy Mamacita of the Big Kahuna, was I ever wrong.
I just ran across this psychotic festering pustule of an etiquette film, entitled simply Dinner Party. If you download it, prepare yourself for fifteen tortuous minutes of sheer mental illness.
It may be the purest representation of unbridled paranoia ever committed to film, and it ain’t pretty. Yeah, the movie starts out being your typical dated camp-fest. But as the narrator relentlessly expounds on the neurotic inner turmoil of the characters compulsively fretting and second-guessing themselves over meaningless minutia, your sense of amusement begins to fade. Then you realize to your horror that they actually showed this monstrosity to little children.
I’ve transcribed a few moments of the film to serve as an illustration. In this sequence, our hero Bob proceeds to have a nervous breakdown as he contemplates serving the meat course. To his friends. At his own birthday party. Read on if you dare.
As host, Bob is expected to serve the meat course. At home, his father does the serving. It looked perfectly simple, and it is. But if you were in Bob’s place, would you know positively what to do? Which serving implement should he use? Should he just go ahead as best he can?
Dorothy is looking away so as not to notice.
Bob still isn’t sure of what to do, but he can’t hesitate forever. That amount seems too much. A lady is not flattered by being offered a portion the size that might appeal to a hungry lumberjack.
Betty is worried for Bob, but, after all, he is trying.
Everyone learns by experience, even when mistakes are made, and one isn’t at all sure of anything that he is doing. Bob wonders if the portions he is serving are now too small. Should he give a large portion to the men and small ones to the ladies? Or should he serve about this amount and let the guests return their plates if they wish a second helping?
Now Betty is about to serve the salad. Some new questions are arising. Can she use the implements for serving the salad correctly? And what size should the portions of salad be? Is she offering too little? Is she getting a proper assortment?
As Betty passes the plate, should she say for whom the plate is intended?
Bernie and Helen act as if everything were going smoothly with them, and so really it is. In spite of Betty’s worries there are no mishaps.
Floyd and Dorothy are enjoying themselves.
Bob, you notice, is not starting first this time; he waits, with the others, for Betty to start.
Here is the kind of fun that they all thought of when the party was planned: of having a good meal together and plainly enjoying one another’s company. The errors that have been made haven’t taken the fun out of the party, and we must remember to give them credit for all the things that have been done correctly. For every mistake made, a dozen things have been done correctly.
Today the world’s largest airplane, the Soviet Antonov An-225 Mriya was at McCarren Airport here in Vegas, so I left work early, picked up my daughter, and took a bunch of pictures. Jeez, it’s enormous. I never thought I’d see anything that makes a C5-A looks small.
My latest obsession stems from an engineering competition being discussed at work: a pinebox derby. I came up with the idea of making my entry a gyroscopically-balanced single-wheel car that uses magnetic levitation to — but I’ve already said too much.
