The Invisible Counterpoint

The Circle It's difficult to figure out why everyone is so ready to laugh at the humiliated Carrie in Carrie . We're told at the beginning that it's the popular gang's fault, where everyone else laughs along so to not be caught out and be deemed part of her very dubious camp. And this is substantiated at other times, when one or two kids show that, when no one's really attending, they're quite prepared to interact with her as if she might not have the plague. But then again, when the prom's on, and they laugh at her while she's covered with blood, it's impromptu, immediate, reflex: there's no calculation of what is expected of them, they simply automatically in chorus respond in awful jeering. So, what? Kids can be mean? Except they're not really quite kids anymore. So, people can be? Except not everyone is. There's not an ounce of it in the gym teacher. Nor in a few others who met her at the prom and reacted to her openly. The film ha...

Margot said this: "People are reviled for refusing to do the Santa dance with their children. Santa is about training children to pretend to believe the preposterous in order to get a material reward, however destructive and brain-sucking the 'reward' may be." In response, I said this: " Well, if the material reward is an Xbox 360, it can stimulate the brain and maybe even provide spiritual uplift. Have you ever played Star Wars' Battlefront? I know, I know--it's an old game; but it's still my very favorite! " In response, she said this: "Battlefront? I rest my case. I'd rather children sat on the snow by the river and watched swans." And in response, I said this: " Margot, river-side, swan-watching might be just the thing gardening lions might one day come to prefer, but for children already half-frozen by the after-shocks of 9/11, better parenting advice comes from those such as Royal Tenenbaum, who...