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November 20, 2006
Piercing the Veil
I'm re-reading W. E. B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk as research for a screenplay I'm developing. The story I'm cooking has bupkus to do with race, but as subtext, DuBois' treatise is incredibly useful.
I couldn't find the book on its own in a secondhand store, but it's bundled into a fat anthology. When I opened my yellowed copy this morning on the streetcar, the spine burst with a crack.
Something from Chapter 1 caught my eye:
...the Negro is sort of a seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, -- a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
At my desk, I took a few minutes to scan the zeitgeist before plunging into the tasks at hand. The entertainment news included this tidbit:
Kramer's tirade: Michael Richards, the actor best known for playing Kramer on "Seinfeld," performed at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood on Friday, and at one point exploded into a racist tirade against two audience members he felt were heckling him. After yelling "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass," Richards went on to scream racial epithets as the men left, and from the video, most of the audience got up to leave as well. An audience member caught what happened on tape -- you can watch the video here. (TMZ)
Seriously, watch the video.
I enjoyed watching Seinfeld in the 90s, though I burned out quickly due to wall-to-wall reruns. But the next time I blip past Jerry and the gang while channel-surfing, I expect to feel a most peculiar sensation.
UPDATED: Click the video pane below to start playing the video.
Posted by Your Protagonist at November 20, 2006 10:05 AM