Starting Points (# 94)

In the movie 'You've Got Mail', Joe Fox (played by Tom Hanks) states that 'The Godfather' is the sum of all wisdom and that everything you need to know can be found within it's numerous quotes: i.e. "go to the mattresses", "leave the gun, take the canolli", "it's not personal, it's business" etc.) I'm often impressed how a good line, whether on the screen or the stage - or the disc for that matter, has a way of working it's way into our lives until it becomes a way of communicating so much more than just the words .. the whole weight of or shared experiences can be delivered in a line as simple as "be excellent to each other - and party on dudes" or as profound as "you had me at hello" or as eternal as "live long and prosper".

Having said all that, I'm reminded this weekend of another source of great lines: Fiddler on the Roof. Not only is it my favorite of all musicals; it has become my Godfather of quotes. I always wanted to play Tevya - and should the need arise, I have the better portion of his lines memorized from the MGM movie starring Topol. In one of his monologues, Tevya is responding to the news that Tzeitel and Motel have 'engaged' themselves to be married ("they gave each other a pledge...unthinkable").

But this isn't a post about quotes - it's about starting points. Tevya goes on to say / sing "One little time you pull out a prop, and where does it stop? where does it stop". These are the words that rang in my head as I contemplated my the connections between the book I'm reading (The Intuitionist) and the 6 hour mini series of Dune that I rented this weekend. In both of these alternate realities, the author has taken a single rather obscure item and turned the universe askew just a bit.

In the Intuitionist, which I rambled quite enough about on Thursday, the starting point was the ubiquitous elevator. What would happen if the science of "vertical transport" [making elevators go up and down] were incredibly significant to our culture and not an assumed backwater engineering subset? What if every bright little boy and girl dreamed of growing up to be a member of the elevator inspector guild? What if those that could sense the health of an elevator (the Intuitionists) were locked in a political power struggle with the hard-nosed Empiricists that relied on mechanical measurements and visual inspections ..... but I digress....

The starting point in Dune is the assumption that the excrement of giant sand worms is a visionary drug that enables interstellar space navigation. Because this was a miniseries, we are able to spend more time with the Warring political factions that made up the galaxy. In particular, the spacing guild and the hyper-conservationists of a desert world - the Fremen. I so enjoy experiencing another world with a slight little change and all the ripples that radiate out from the point of impact. Each player in the world must walk among he ensuing waves as they meet with normal struggles like falling in love and facing our fears.

Or as Tevya would say it: Tradition!