Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1262492
12 C I N E M O N T A G E G E T T I N G O R G A N I Z E D of egress and ingress having fallen into disuse. The typical, tidal rhythms defin- ing our weekdays — rush hour commute to the job, rush hour commute back home — have been supplanted by a ceaseless tattoo of hand-washings. What day of the week is it again? This curious timelessness in which we now reside seems best understood not via clocks or calendars, but in reference to Kubrick pictures: the eerie, under-lit c l o i s te r o f a n a l i e n h o te l ro o m , t h e hermitage of a snowbound resort. Will this era of claustrophobic sequestration ultimately devolve into a labyrinth of icy violence or blossom into the conception of an unfathomable star child? Alas, we've seen enough of this movie to know, if not how it ends, at least what happens next. The anomalous and anxious times in which I pen this piece are not about to get better anytime very soon. Indeed, every indication from the epidemiologists makes clear that by the time this column is published some weeks hence, things will be far bleaker. Money will be a lot tighter, of course, for those missing paychecks. And far too many of us and our neighbors will fall ill, some to suffer greatly, some never to recover. We will perhaps recall this moment through a veil of rueful nostal- gia, as days of comparative normalcy before our collapse into grim chaos, as an interregnum before a cruel reign. We might come to look wistfully upon those weeks when we worried so much about the availability of toilet paper. As we face down these frightening times and try to devise ways of safely containing ourselves within our shelters without withdrawing from our commu- nities and our world, we've been giving a lot of thought to material provisions: paper products, canned goods, shelf-sta- ble staples that will allow us to minimize excursions to the market. But we need to think, too, about the mental provisions that will sustain us through this catastro- phe and will serve us best in that future period of restoration once we eventually emerge from our crisis cocoons. If your family is like mine, you've likely been doubling down on comfort food of late. There's a time for food — and for thought — that's fresh, subtle, and sophisticated. But there's also a time — times such as these — to tear open a package of something highly-pro- cessed and be instantly rewarded with a precisely engineered admixture of salty, savory, and sweet, one calculated to meet immediate needs and to evoke a sense of familiar security. Now that we're all doomsday preppers, we might find in maxims, truisms, and even clichés the same qualities we've come to prize in canned goods: they're pre-packaged, they serve utilitarian functions, and they have long shelf lives. In the context of organizing — of mus- tering solidarity to overcome isolation, forging power to overcome helplessness — what maxims will fortify us now? And a perhaps equally urgent question: what mental provisions have outlived their expiration dates, and must be discarded? On that latter question first, let us examine for a moment that shopworn cliché I alluded to earlier, the precept that "The show must go on." Wilfred Granville's "Dictionary of Theatrical Terms" refers to it as "The traditional slogan of the troupers," and the "Oxford English Dictionary" suggests that it had entered common currency by at least the mid-nineteenth century. Granville explains that "Whatever tragedy may enter the life of a player, or however ill he may feel, it is a point of honour not to let the other players down by deserting them when no understudy is available." (Witness the sleight of hand that defini- tion effects, whereby an obligation to the enterprise of the show is transformed into an obligation to one's co-workers.) Although "The show must go on" describes an ethos attributed specifically to the entertainment industry, it has long been used figuratively to assert the compulsion to persevere with any plans or routines in the face of disruptive misfortune. Whether "the show" literally refers to an exhibition for entertainment or figuratively refers to whatever other enterprise, the underlying message i s m u c h t h e s a m e : w e w i l l p ro c e e d with business as usual, all horrors and grief notwithstanding. Let this be among the bromides we discard, definitively and permanently. Indeed, the current shutdown of the entertainment industry has rendered obvious what we perhaps ought to have long suspected: by any reasonable notion of necessity, the show really need not go on. And there's certainly nothing honorable in compulsory persistence with business as usual. In situations in which health and lives are imperiled, the production of entertainment, however central it is to all of our livelihoods, and however much pride our members might rightly take in it, is nonessential work. H oweve r o bv i o u s, t h a t t r u t h h a s not been recognized universally. The H o l l y w o o d R e p o r t e r r e p o r t e d t h a t Prometheus Entertainment, the non- union production company behind the "reality " TV show "Ancient Aliens," continued to have editorial and other employees report to its off ices after L.A.'s Mayor Garcetti ordered all non- essential employees to shelter at home. Prometheus argued that, as a media company, it was an "essential" employer exempted from the city's order. Notwith- standing the risk to his employees and the greater public, Prometheus President Kevin Burns believed his show must go on. I don't know who needs to hear this (aside from Mr. Burns), but nobody should fall ill or die to appease the needs of "Ancient Aliens." The problem isn't unique to our indus- try, though. Dave Jamieson reported for Huffington Post in late March on a wide range of businesses that had deemed themselves "essential" for purposes of