James intersect Alec intersect Anittah
Quoth James Baldwin,
You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.
From Ian Parker’s “Why Me?” in the September 8, 2008 The New Yorker:
According to Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Saturday Night Live” and an executive producer of “30 Rock,” [Alec] Baldwin “guards against enjoyment.” [Says Michaels, to Baldwin;] “‘It’s a great time in your life. It’s an all-good thing. And, if you were capable of enjoying it, it would be even better.’”
But we erect our personal pipes and through these structures our realities flow, unadulterated by dismal objectivity. We believe that which we want to.
Continues Parker:
Then began a period where, in Baldwin’s description, “I ignored all of my instincts and started to do what other people suggested I do, but I knew it was wrong.” Baldwin is perhaps too easily seduced by a narrative of grand failure, rather than accepting a quieter story of qualified success …
“My life, in some ways, has been a half-measure. I didn’t commit myself all the way to my marriage and family, because I would have given up more. And I didn’t go all the way with just being selfish. I always wonder where my career would be if I was more selfish.”
I worry that my mind will (continue to?) work like this in a couple of decades.
After a flirtation last Saturday with the idea of merging and acquiring my way to a chief executive officership by my early forties, I realized a couple of things:
- My commitment to pursuing a doctorate is that much stronger
- I refuse to be intimidated by two years of economic theory
- I am not the only one lured by all that glitters (/ain’t gold)
I’ll let you figure out how the above paragraph intersects with the following, again from Parker:
His mind turned to the example of Conrad Bain, the actor with a fine theatrical background who came to Philip Drummond, the white father of two adopted African-American boy, on “Diff’rent Strokes.” Embroidering on this thought, Baldwin imagined an actor who signs up for the quick money of a sitcom pilot quite confident that the show will never be commissioned: “The agent’s saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s the biggest piece of shit in the history of show business.’ Cut to six years later: you’re in your dressing room, you’re in season five, and on the wall are posters of you from the New York Shakespeare Festival — these achingly beautiful posters on the wall. By that point, you’re making a hundred and seventy-five thousand a week, you’ve got a house in East Hampton, you’re getting laid constantly, you’ve got closets of beautiful Italian suits, and you’re got three cars in the garage and you’re paying alimony to your ex-wife who’s living down in Florida. And you’re doing the same jokes, again and again and again.”
And if you haven’t yet figured out how haunting I find these unrelated Baldwin boy thoughtstreams, I’ll leave you with these words. Quoth Alec:
When I get onstage … I feel very safe, very protected, very fulfilled. I go out there, I can’t tell you how happy I am.
An addiction? A demon to wrestle?
Answers: empty set.
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