DEEP TIME, SHALLOW RESULTS

Great, more for the rest of us!

Unlike right-wingers and religionists, I tend to listen to well-educated people who know more than me regarding science and medicine. 

It's very simple: I don't tell them how pandemics should be treated, they don't tell me which pre-code movies are worth watching.

But then... there are times when I wonder if these very smart people have just a little too much time on their hands. 

There are plenty of New Yorkers who would gladly
trade their studio apartments for a drafty cave this big.

Recently, 15 volunteers in France took part in an experiment consisting of living in a cave for 40 days without any contact with the outside world. To quote the news report: Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute leading the 1.2 million-euro (£1.05 million) 'Deep Time' project say the experiment will help them better understand how people adapt to drastic changes in living conditions and environments, something much of the world can relate to because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hey, I was living in a scientific
experiment all along! Where's my
cut of the 1.2-million euros?

Not to be a nitpicker, but couldn't they have accomplished the same thing with half the amount of money by interviewing a couple dozen people who spent the last year adapting to drastic changes in living conditions? LIKE ALL OF US?!

And guess what the volunteers' biggest takeaway was after living in a cave  without clocks or electric lights for over five weeks? Time seemed to pass more slowly. As it did for, oh, EVERYBODY ELSE LAST YEAR!   

Over one million of those euro-things to reach conclusions you've known the last 12 months? Surely there must have been better ways to spend that kind of scratch. Like splitting the money among 15 people who lost their jobs. Do you know how many escargots your average French citizen could buy with 66,000 euros? A beaucoup amount, that's how many! 

And if they got tired of snails swimming in Pouilly-Fuisse, they could indulge in espresso and Gauloises to their cœur's content. Maybe it would take their minds off protesting the whatever their latest grievance is. Which by rights should be scientists blowing money on useless studies.

I think this is from Alphaville, but really, it
could be any French movie from the '60s.

Maybe another study could learn why French movies are boring and self-indulgent. Did everybody in the industry suddenly start dropping downers and reading Proust 24/7? Or should we just blame it on Jean-Luc Godard. 

Lord knows I tried enjoying Godard "classics", like Alphaville and A Bout de Souffle (which I thought would be a delightful comedy about an egg lover). I even checked out his 1987 take on King Lear, featuring those eminent Shakespearean thespians Norman Mailer, Molly Ringwald and Woody Allen. 

From this trio of movies alone, I discovered there were only three reactions any normal person would have to anything directed by Godard:

                                      Falling asleep.

                                      Going for popcorn and never returning.

                                      Muttering What the fuck is this? for two hours. 

 

Go ahead, you try a direct
translation of The Disorderly
Orderly.

How is it that the French movie industry -- hell, all of France  -- has genuflected at the spastic feet of Jerry Lewis, yet never released a comedy that anybody outside their country can name off the top of their heads? 

None of this is to demean the country itself. My family and I had a wonderful time biking through the South of France some years ago. And it was the first time I ordered bull at a restaurant. (If you're wondering, bull tastes like a really powerful steak.) 

Nope, France is fine. It's just that, like all countries, there are always better ways to spend its money. Their scientists have un ouvrir l'invitation to swing by my place if they want to set up a study on drastic changes in living.

Check it out: We just got a new cable box/DVR that can store even more movies than our last one. You know what 40 days worth of TCM can do to one's perception of time?

Wait, don't tell the scientists. I want those million euros for myself.

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