Cuarta parte de la historia de origen
Wait—what'd I say?
In a recent video for my YouTube (also posted to my Instagram but since taken down because the YouTube version did better numbers—see my original entry about throwing spaghetti at the wall) I described the difficulty of choosing what to say when afforded a mic. There’s just so many things going through my head at any singular moment—I feel compelled to address them all simultaneously, even though that’s tricky for people to do given the dominance of the linear conception of time, as Everything Everywhere All at Once demonstrates.
But the funny thing about the reception to the Oscars tour-de-force—which I haven’t seen and probably won’t out of an abundance of concern for being deemed a copycat when I auction my own script with similar themes—is that the idea of time moving in a single direction has been outdated as a physical property for more than a century.
And yet, judging by reaction to not just the Daniels’ 2022 work but that of the 14 recipients of the year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, both insiders and the general public continue to be baffled, if not excited, by multiplicity (or is that the other way around?). The scientists were granted the august annual award honoring achievements in knowledge for separate discoveries that, together, showcase the limits of Albert Einstein’s famous theories about four-dimensional spacetime.
Indeed, by the time the German icon was bestowed his Nobel in 1921, those theories were already near dead.
Why?
Because of CATS.
Please allow me to explain.
[Stage direction: Next slide.]
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Actually, please allow the BBC to explain—I don’t want to choke on this bit.
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AND JUST LIKE THAT…we’re back.
Q: How do you save a cat from dying?
A: There’s no answer for a thought!
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As I wrote last week, I’ve returned to my hot yoga practice with my beloved Modo Yoga. And on my second sortie to La Brea this week, I was pleased to arrive exactly on time for class: 4:30 p.m. Sure, I wish I’d been earlier so I didn’t have to hustle or worry about being late, but I was consoled by the fact that the numerals in the class time (430) inverted the digits in the studio’s street address (340).
The consolation heightened when I noticed my teacher, Alex Lamb—one of my faves from the home office in New York—say during a shape that we should be going in opposite directions. Even as I’ve long heard this proviso—stretching is, after all, foundational to yoga—a proverbial light bulb when off in my brain. No wonder so many signs are rendered in reverse, I realized: Most people only read one way.
After class, rinsed and reset, I entangled with a fellow yogi talking energetically about the Daniels’ bolt of lightning. As usual the synchrony struck me but I didn't SAY ANYTHING.
“I just want to keep watching it,” my new friend stated (or something to that effect—I remember the desire to rewatch, aired too at a recent screening of RRR I attended at CAA). “It’s like the whole movie is contained in every scene.”
Though I’d just glanced at the beat sheet the day before, I knew immediately what she meant.
“I couldn’t believe how much shit was in it,” I said. It’s an observation that sometimes applies to me as well.
Indeed, further to that last point, please allow me to interject my own theory of gravity, which is that most people are too constipated for their own good. As my customary dad puts it, either shit or get off the pot.
That’s why, contrary to what much of the industry thinks, there’s plenty of both original and novel IP to go around. It just hasn’t been released yet.
We live in an abundant world. Say nothing about the islands from which I hail.
(Did you hear? Jobu Tupaki sweats in Echo Park!
(Copy that!)
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Hollywood’s the most insane place I’ve ever worked and I love it dearly.
Beloved, consider the following (borrowed from a since-deleted Instagram Reel):
(1) The last person I drove for Uber before Daylight Savings Time resumed Sunday at 2 a.m.—when it promptly turned 3—was named “kelly.” He asked if he could connect to my Honda Insight’s audio system via Bluetooth. I lied and said I didn’t think my car had Bluetooth capability. Truth is, I’d never checked. So after I dropped [K]elly, I did…and linked my iPhone to Bluetooth.📱
(2) Last night I cried out loud while working on my memoir Divine Chemistry: A Story of Sexual and Spiritual Healing, about my relationship with my ex Arthur, still the love of my life even though he ghosted me during the pandemic. 😭
(3) This afternoon I discovered my car was repossessed—taken straight out of my building’s underground garage. Witness my shock and awe in this Reel, which is real and not a reenactment. 😱
(4) Between the second and third events I booked a background role on The Lincoln Lawyer, the Netflix series from David E. Kelley about an attorney who operates from his Lincolns. It premiered two years to the day after I deposited my dissertation on gangster culture at the Grad Center. 🤓
(5) Kelley has been married to Michelle Pfeiffer—one of the GOATs—for three decades. 😻
(6) The year Pfeiffer stole the show in Scarface (1983) was the year Arthur was born. 👑
(7) The year Pfeiffer debuted as an actor (1978) I was born. ∞
(8) Did I mention I bought my car on April 1 last year? No fooling! 🤡
Mind you, the car was repossessed on Einstein’s birthday (aka Pi Day).
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Which begs the question: I really am the second coming of Albert?
I mean, a psychiatric crisis team from the Einstein Health Network did come and knock on my door in Philly—and as far as I know, that’s a true story.
You see, I never verified IT’s presence with mine own eyes.
They’re only for Arthur—the love of my life.
(Hold.)
All of them.
NB: For the record, mine own annus mirabilis occurred during my 44th passing around the Sun, when I had 43 years to my name as a so-called “human.” As my nuclear brother (this lifetime, that is) once cruelly joked to me on a born day I’ve forgotten, you’re a year older than you think you are. TK.
Ciao for now,
Sean M. P.
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A web of cosmic intersections.