Page 123 - The Irony Board
P. 123
Into the Cosmos
Dust floats in
Projector’s path,
Lightly takes
Its air-borne bath,
And content
To prance and preen,
Fails to see
What’s on the screen.
Moving from religious to classical sources, Gluckman updates
Plato’s parable of the cave. In that story, human perception is
likened to the viewing of shadows of real objects cast upon the wall
by a lamp; the imperfections of the senses forever prevent man from
apprehending the ideal forms behind the reality he experiences. The
venue has changed to a motion-picture theater and the observer to a
dust mote dancing about in the rays of light conveying the filmed
image across the auditorium. Its own shadow is, in fact, part of the
picture, albeit a very small one; but the speck is too involved in
amusing itself to be concerned with the whole film being presented.
Why should it care? It has the benefit of the light without needing to
understand the bigger picture. Instead of Plato’s unreachable ideal,
we are confronted by Hollywood’s unattainable ideal: life as a movie,
eternal youth in a glamorous setting, away from all real-world
problems.
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