Against boredom even gods struggle in vain — Friedrich Nietzsche.

I have heard that phrase all my life but was never interested enough — or bored enough — to look up the context.  So RBT is, at least, contributing to my education.

From Nietzsche’s The Antichrist (1895).  The gods are indeed bored, and that is the reason for the creation of man.  Of course, being gods, they are right, and “man is entertaining.” But now man himself is bored — doh!

The know-it-all gods have an answer for everything, so they create animals to entertain men.  But men are not entertained by animals — at least not until YouTube.

“He sought dominion over [the animals].”

I don’t see these as being mutually exclusive — man can use the dominion over them to force bears to ride bicycles, tigers to jump through flaming hoops and monkeys to really do anything, including being eaten by a bear riding a bicycle — that’s entertainment!

The gods aren’t too concerned about the boredom of the animals, so they take another crack at curing man’s boredom.  Not that they made a mistake the first time!!!  No siree, these are the best and the brightest, the gods, infallible, omnipotent beings, our moral and intellectual superiors in every way.

“So God created woman. In the act he brought boredom to an end — and also many other things!”

I’m not sure what he’s getting at there other than watching TV in your underwear and drinking milk from the carton.  Then Nietzsche really goes off the rails.

“Woman was the second mistake of God — Woman, at bottom, is a serpent, Heva — every priest knows that; from woman comes every evil in the world — every priest knows that, too.”

He then goes on to blame woman for the rise of science, as if that was a terrible thing.  Cuz you know, someone’s gonna put an eye out with the science.

Rrrrright.  I think someone needed a Fraulein.

But that is all from Chapter 48.  Maybe I am still not understanding the context.  Maybe Chapter 49 is called, “Found my Meds, Did I Say Anything Stupid Yesterday?”

Next Week: Where are those mills, and how exactly do they grind so exceedingly small?

But back to Ray Bradbury Theater which bored me in the first place.

Harold Gould is scavenging in a trashy possibly post-apocalyptic city when his attention is caught by a woman knitting with real wool — obviously a rarity in this world. He sees a young man lighting up a freshly rolled cigarette and begins wistfully reeling off the names of cigarettes from his youth, presumably our present.

He then goes on in classic Bradbury-is-meant-for-the-printed-page soliloquy about Butterfingers, limes, oranges. The young man roughs him up for reminding him of better times; like before he started speaking.

When he leaves, another man helps him up, saying he had heard of him.  He warns Gould of dangerous memories, sneaking him into an abandoned building where he lives with other like-minds.  Gould is stunned that the man offers him wine.  Cops bang on the door offering canned good for information about Gould.

Despite the temptation, the do not give him up.  The police begin to leave, then turn and up the ante with, “Beans.  Soup.  15 cans.”

The man doesn’t give in.  He seems like a good egg despite calling his wife “Wife” and calling Gould “Old Man.”  He sends Wife to round up their neighbors to hear Gould’s stories of the old days.

And Bradbury lets loose with more of his signature rambles about motion picture houses, popcorn, Orange Crush, phonograph records, dial telephones, harmonicas, kazoos, Jew’s harps, dashboard dials on a Cadillac, etc.

As he goes on, the police bang on the door of the meeting.  The man hustles Gould out of site, and down the fire escape.  The man gives him a ticket on the only remaining train which will take him to the titular Chicago Abyss where the city used to stand — now a crater.

He takes the train, which makes Snowpiercer look like Acela.

Harold Gould does a great job, standing with David Ogden Stiers as the only ones to really make Bradbury’s flowery words work on the screen.

In truth, this episode was no worse than many others, and was certainly better than The Haunting of the New.  In fairness, the rant about boredom would have been more appropriate there; but the cumulative effect is wearing me down.

Post-Post:

• I’m not sure if it is a coincidence that Gould and Stiers were so effective in their delivery, and the stories were so similar.  Both take place in a fascistic future society where simple pleasures like taking a walk or being nostalgic are criminal offenses.
• RBT got themselves a real director for a change.  Randy Bradshaw has 40 credits including 21 Jump Street, Goosebumps and the 1980’s Twilight Zone reboot.

Superman’s hot mother — no, not Ma Kent — Susannah York calls her writer friend Charles at 5 am from one of those houses that is so fancy that it has a name — Greenwood.  She asks him to come to Greenwood, and says he can have the house . . . if the house likes him.

The next morning, he slicks back his hair, puts it in a pony tail, dons his round wire-frame glasses, driving gloves, bow-tie, french cuffs, winged collar, scarf and pocket square, and hops in his convertible — yeah, a bit of a dandy.

When he arrives, he finds York sitting in the garden.  She says the house won’t let her in.  In fact, at her party the previous night, the house drove away the guests.

She tells Charles the house is his if he wants it, but he must go in alone.  He goes in and imagines the house burning down.

I got nothing.

Neither does this episode.

Just crap.

I wrote a diatribe about how boring the next RBT episode (The Chicago Abyss) was, but it probably belongs in this post.

Post-Post:

• Roger Tompkins also directed A Miracle of Rare Device.  He has no non-RBT credits.  None.
• Idea:  The Haunting of the Newd.  Then you got somethin’.

The arrogant Mr. Eckels steps off the elevator into the lobby of Time Safari Inc.  Maybe part of his superior attitude is that he sees the lunkheads at RBT have pluralized safari with an apostrophe — SAFARI’S.

He hands over his ticket and is introduced to safari guide Travis, the poor man’s Muldoon.  Eckels hands him a data card which provides Travis with biographical info.  He is a big game hunter who has “shot everything.”  His quickness to hand over payment tells us maybe he is a bored rich-boy content to let his guides do the heavy lifting until he can get out of the air-conditioned Jeep and plug the animals.

Once they are suited up and armed, they march through a needlessly smokey corridor to the time machine.  As they go, Eckels quotes extensively and grandiloquently from the company’s brochure.  Bradbury did not have Serling’s weakness for padding out scenes with extended monologues, but he never quite mastered the difference between writing for the page versus the screen.

Out of chars and ashes, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, will leap.  Roses sweeten the air, white hair turns black, wrinkles vanish.  All, everything flies back to seed.  Flee death.

That’s great on the page, but not so much on screen; and also probably not so much in a company brochure.  Travis, appropriately, snorts in Eckels’ general direction.

They materialize 60 millions years in the past.  A silver anti-gravity walkway extends from the ship, into the jungle.  The group is warned to stay on the path.  The death of even a single roach or flower or blade of grass could have catastrophic effects millions of years in the future.

Eckels does turn out to be a panicky Pete.  When the T-Rex comes into view, he is clearly terrified — bug-eyed and quivering.    As it draws closer, we get another classic Bradbury better-on-the-page exclamation from Eckels, “My God, it could reach up and grab the moon!”

In awe of the creature’s size, Eckels fearfully says, “No one can kill that.  It can’t be killed.”  Travis orders him back to the ship, but he is frozen in fear.  He begins backing away and steps off the pathway.  Travis and the rest of the group shoot the dinosaur.  Eckels joins the fun by firing wildly at the animal.  As punishment, Eckels is made to dig the bullets out of the carcass — pack it in, pack it out.

They return to the future, but find differences ranging from subtle to horrific.  Travis examines Eckels’ boots and sees that when he fell from the platform, he killed a butterfly, setting in motion a series of changes which millions of years later would catastrophically result in an Ashton Kutcher movie.

Given the budget and the chowderheads producing this series, they did about as good a job as could have been expected.  I’m on the fence about Kiel Martin as Eckels — either he perfectly personifies Eckels’ fear-cloaked-in-arrogance, or he is just a complete ham.  John Bach is great as the guide.  Yeah, the effects are not Jurassic Park, but you work with what ya got, and they seemed to make the most out of what they had.

The last frame of the episode contains a shock even if you know it is coming.  Congrats to RBT for getting surprisingly dark.  In the context of the series, I’d have to say this was a success, one of the best.

Post-Post:

• This is arguably Bradbury’s most famous story.  At one time, it was the most frequently reprinted story in history.  Naturally, it is not in the “100 Most Celebrated Tales” collection that I have.
• First published in Collier’s Magazine in 1952.
• NZ-LOTR Connection:  John Bach played Madril in 2 movies.  Director Costa Botes (who also directed The Dwarf) was a cameraman on the 1st one.
• The story pre-dates the Chaos Theory concept of the Butterfly Effect, and I don’t see any evidence that it was named after the story; but that’s a pretty big coincidence.