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Nov. 30th, 2003 12:59 pm
Yesterday I went down to the barber shop. (Yes, we have one, ancient swivel chairs, electric barber-pole sign, and everything.) After my haircut I walked over to the bookstore and a few other places downtown.
The Alpine Village can be a bit surreal, and with the Christmas decorations out it's more so. Christmas carols, instrumentals on electric organ, were playing on the tinny bullhorn speakers bolted to the quaint, green-painted wrought iron lampposts.
And for an instant I felt I was in another Village, The Village from The Prisoner. Fortunately the weather was atrocious-- gray skies, spitting half-melted snow-- so I knew I wasn't caught in that particular sunny nightmare. But for a moment there, I had The Fear, badly.
I always liked The Prisoner ( http://www.retroweb.com/prisoner.html ). Therein lies another tale I'll humiliate myself by sharing with you.
Several years ago we moved our offices from a state-owned building, one quarter of a mile down the road to a very expensive leased one. Our former Guv was into privitization, his code word for payoffs to his Honest Businessman buddies; I suspect this was another of those cases. I've never been able to see any other reason for it.
Be that as it may, one day my supervisor, Janis, was walking around with the plans for the new building, assigning our new cubicles.
"Mark, you've got Cubicle Number Four," she said. "Dave, you have Five, and Bill, you are Number Six."
I couldn't help it.
"I am not a number! I AM A FREE MAN!" I shouted.
I was rewarded with the blankest look I've ever seen in my life. Janis had never seen The Prisoner.
Well, I had to explain it to her to let her know I wasn't any crazier than she already knew. She's a good sport, she chuckled about it.
But, damn. A once in a lifetime perfect straight line, and it had to be delivered by someone who didn't know what it meant. Papa Coyote, you sure got a good laugh on me that time.
The Alpine Village can be a bit surreal, and with the Christmas decorations out it's more so. Christmas carols, instrumentals on electric organ, were playing on the tinny bullhorn speakers bolted to the quaint, green-painted wrought iron lampposts.
And for an instant I felt I was in another Village, The Village from The Prisoner. Fortunately the weather was atrocious-- gray skies, spitting half-melted snow-- so I knew I wasn't caught in that particular sunny nightmare. But for a moment there, I had The Fear, badly.
I always liked The Prisoner ( http://www.retroweb.com/prisoner.html ). Therein lies another tale I'll humiliate myself by sharing with you.
Several years ago we moved our offices from a state-owned building, one quarter of a mile down the road to a very expensive leased one. Our former Guv was into privitization, his code word for payoffs to his Honest Businessman buddies; I suspect this was another of those cases. I've never been able to see any other reason for it.
Be that as it may, one day my supervisor, Janis, was walking around with the plans for the new building, assigning our new cubicles.
"Mark, you've got Cubicle Number Four," she said. "Dave, you have Five, and Bill, you are Number Six."
I couldn't help it.
"I am not a number! I AM A FREE MAN!" I shouted.
I was rewarded with the blankest look I've ever seen in my life. Janis had never seen The Prisoner.
Well, I had to explain it to her to let her know I wasn't any crazier than she already knew. She's a good sport, she chuckled about it.
But, damn. A once in a lifetime perfect straight line, and it had to be delivered by someone who didn't know what it meant. Papa Coyote, you sure got a good laugh on me that time.
