A Short Film About Disappointment

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I saw Having, Not Having, Being, Not Being because I happened to duck into the Global, a theater I dislike, while running from a man trying to break my nose.

The operators of the Global are self-congratulatory and condescending, as if showing foreign films in a prosperous native neighborhood is an act of mercy rather than a profitable indulgence. The programmer is a philistine who prefers to screen sententious documentaries, foreign splatter films, and slow-pitch comedies with the invariable moral that one ought to be nice to one’s parents before they die, if just once. Passing the box office, one sees patrons as resigned to their duty as plumbers.

Not to mention that they charge twenty-three dollars a ticket, and if they get your Pinger ID, they will send you a message every hour until your death, demanding more money so they can continue their mission. The fund-raising is interminable. The pledge drive goes on five months. The director gets paid as much as twelve rail workers, has a brownstone in the Safe Zone, a daughter at private kindergarten.

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