By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Mr. Sunshine
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus
Good ol’ Al, Mr. Sunshine. Camus’ opening for “The Stranger”: “Mother died yesterday. Or perhaps today. I’m not sure,” better describes my disaffection this time of season. Day after day of dark, dank, dreary.
When my lone winter pleasure — kicking snow clogs out of car wheel wells — died thanks to a thaw, I was left bereft. A huge, melting icicle hung from the roof eave, mocking me. When I whacked it, it bent the shovel blade. I reversed it, holding the blade and bashing the icicle over and over with the shovel handle. Finally, down it came with a crash.
It doesn’t take much to entertain me. The shattered ice on the ground and new eave void remdered me ecstatic. My wife was less impressed, noting scars on the nearby wall from where I had swung and missed. Let her find her invincible summer elsewhere.
Why is it guys like breaking things? Icicles, rivals’ spirits, our parents’ and spouses’ hearts … ?
When I was dating, I went with girlfriends du jour to “chick flicks.” I sat through eternities of the “seemingly-perfect, but emotionally-flawed girl meets awful guy with a couple saving qualities, they fight, then get stuck together somehow. Magically, their feelings for each other blossom into deep, passionate love” nonsense hoping to impress whoever she was with how sensitive I was to her inner feelings.
After getting married I never again made myself endure this. Our relationship changed in other ways I liked less well, but this “correction,” as they say in the stock market, made it worth it.
For revenge I took my wife to “Pulp Fiction.” That may be the last film we’ve seen together.
Maxim Magazine ranks “Slap Shot” (1977) even higher than “Pulp Fiction,” calling it the ultimate Guy Movie. Why?
“Because,” writes Tim Dirks, “Paul Newman and the rest of the Charleston Chiefs live the life every real guy dreams of: They drink beer, get laid, play sports, gamble, watch TV, avoid relationships and successfully put off adulthood. And at the end of the film, their immaturity is rewarded with a Main Street parade in their honor!
“‘Slap Shot’’s got it all,” Dirks goes on. “Sports, humor, male bonding, violence, more sports, plus some not-strictly-necessary-to-the-plot naked females. What’s not to love?”
Back to Camus and icicle. The French author, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at age 43, considered himself an absurdist — commenting on man’s desire for clarity and meaning in a world and condition that offers neither.
Such gloom has a comic aspect. Camus said we should embrace this. The fact happiness is fleeting and human condition is one of mortality help us better appreciate life and happiness. He died in a car wreck in 1960.
How do you go from quotes such as “Live to the point of tears” to “invincible summer” to perhaps Camus’ best-loved: “Don’t walk in front of me … I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me … I may not lead. Walk beside me … just be my friend”?
Easy. Consider again the icicle. Camus’ “Myth of Sisyphus” — the Greek king condemned by the gods to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down when they near the top, over and over — sees utility in futility.
“The struggle itself toward the heights,” he writes, “is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
No sooner does one icicle fall, or wheel well become unclogged, than another will take its place. We die, life goes on. So as much as we can, in the time that we can, just live!
“Don’t wait for the last judgment,” said Camus. “It comes every day.”
His “summer” quote prefaced, “And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back.”
Crack! Down it comes again.
