| Popis: |
In the year 1991 it became possible to see the year 1992, and in 1992, 1993 looked probable, but the year 2000 implied 3000, 4000, 5000, a dizzying tel escope of anticipation. Now that it's A.D. 2002,1 can't lose the tic of seeing the human world around me already smothered, lost in a remote archeolog ical past. It's not just me. My people—meaning my human, American, now people—keep making futuristic movies where earth gets threatened by aster oids or warty alien ships. And we make movies about evil and apocalypse, turning the metaphysical prism around and around. The devil's been a hand some guy (End of Days), a bumpkin {Little Nicky), a beautiful sexual woman {Ninth Gate). He has been everything we are, in a dozen or so major films in a few years, many more in minor films and television. God puts in the occasional appearance, maybe as a female pop singer {Dogma), but mostly does not show up, leaving us to deal with her nemesis on our own. I care about the appearance of the devil—why I'm not sure—and watch as many of these movies as I can. I walk across the campus where I work one day, in the ten minutes I've squeezed out at noon to get some soup. A preacher, who visits our campus every year and calls himself Brother Tom, turns on me from his small group of listeners. The crowd of students looks mostly amused, using Tom to punctuate their swallows of Starbucks. Tom is middle-aged, hardlooking, his face like a callous with features—a callous on the open hand of a God about to smite. |
