Serendipity

I’ve got this colleague who should have taken a different path in life and become a stand-up comic.  A couple of days or so ago, this individual was sitting with me in my office.  We were chatting away when he suddenly started doing women’s voices.  Hilarity immediately ensued.  In fact, in no time at all he had me giggling like a schoolgirl.

Things went on this way for several minutes until one of his female characterizations made me think of this website called Open Culture.  I think I thought of it because I know that he’s also really into old movies—classic horror flicks, documentaries, weird foreign silents, stuff like that.  Anyway, I’m quite certain that we’d been talking about his love of the cinema just prior to him getting started with his impersonations.  As soon as I thought of the site, I interrupted him, right in the middle of his pompous Margaret Thatcher, and said, “Hey, you ought to check out Open Culture, man, if you want to see a big library of old films.”

This prompted us to go quiet and get on my computer.  I brought up Open Culture, showed him its extensive archive of videos, and then noticed, on its blog link, an embedded clip and accompanying write up on Charles Bukowski, one of my most profound literary influences, going all the way back to my anarcho-cowboy-Rastafarian days in grad school.

A few minutes later he packed up his women and left my office.  At that point I went back and watched the Bukowski clip.  This prompted me to visit YouTube and bring up all the stuff they had on the tough guy writer.  I discovered that way back in the late-80s Barbet Schroeder did a series of short, numbered interviews with the inimitable poet.

Friends, for your enjoyment and edification, I’ve included number 12 here.