Like a lot of folks, I have spent considerable time during the pandemic sheltered in place, and passing the time without going nuts involves a considerable amount of reading – and watching TV. I have read a lot of good books and immersed myself in movies and binge-style TV shows.
The advantages of reading include using my own imagination for what’s being described in the story – the settings, the sounds, the smells, and the characters, while movies and TV shows have to commit to their own visions of these things. This can lead to some puzzling and annoying cognitive dissonance.
To wit:
Torches
Even as a kid, I always wondered about torches. In westerns and horror movies, especially, torches play an important part – this is before flashlights or electric light was invented. Castles and towns in the Old West seem to have a lot of torches, which are all the same and always lit. There are actually two minor variations – the short ones, which are fitted into sconces on castle walls, and the longer, hand-held variety for walking around the town at night, or often, for hunting for fugitives, especially the Town Monster (this is mostly in the Old World countries).
All the torches have even, smooth shafts with taper towards a slight wider end, upon which some material is burning. This magic material never burns out and no embers or burning material ever falls off of them. They are rarely seen being made, unless the hero quickly improvises some after a plane crash. They are never seen being lit. Once lit, they burn indefinitely (Unless the plot requires them to go out for dramatic effect) and they burn robustly. You can swing these torches wildly at monsters and wolves and they won’t go out.
Scenes in town in the Old West always seek to depict the types of shops needed for frontier life: the saloon, the brothel, dry goods, barber/doctor, sheriff’s office, livery, etc. How is there no Town Torchery located on that muddy main street? It’s a mystery.
The Man Behind You
This is a common occurrence in dramatic movies: Two people are speaking face-to-face. At some point during the conversation, one of the people notices a threatening menace behind the person to whom they’re speaking. Their mouth gapes, their eyes widen, instinctively, even before they warn the other person. The person whose back is to this peril never seems to notice their conversational partner is showing signs of fright about something directly behind them. They just keep on conversing and get bopped on the head, or stabbed or shot. In real life, of course, it’s totally distracting if the eyes of the person you’re speaking with wander away from you and you’d react just as instinctively if you saw signs of alarm in their eyes.
The exception to this rule is when a hero pretends to see something beside the villain they’re speaking with, and this feint causes the villain to turn and look, giving the hero a chance to gain an advantage over the hapless scoundrel. I guess bad guys are more observant and this can be cleverly used against them.
Where’s the Bluegrass Content?
Hmmm.. you got me on this one. I got so busy spilling my isolation-addled guts I forgot to build this in, within the space allotted. So sorry – chalk it up to another mystery!
