A little black dress

... A dispatch from bewilderness

When I was in fourth, fifth and sixth grade, the USA and Russia were busy bragging about the size of their bombs. As in “Mine is bigger than yours,” followed by “No, mine is bigger than yours.” As well as the size of their arsenal, as in “I can destroy the world faster than you,” vs. “No, I can destroy the world faster than you.”

This culminated in the Bay of Pigs and a few days during which we stared down the barrel of mutual annihilation. This was also called The Cuban Missile Crisis.  I was eleven years old.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is a black and white film about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which meant the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could wipe each other out. Or as some seemed to believe, that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. should wipe each other out.

Fyi, Dr. Strangelove has been called 7^th funniest comedy ever, the 10th funniest comedy ever, and not funny at all. Like most things, the answer depends on whom you ask.

How old am I? Well, the brain dates to 2006, and the body from 1949. Old enough for the little black dress to be not as little as before. Media today bears little or no resemblance to the business I worked in. No archaic procedures like fact-checking and editing.

It’s Tuesday and it brings 5,689,000,000 things to do, say, think, see, try, buy, eat, hear, wear or not do, say, think, try, buy, eat, hear, wear today. Basically, they fall into categories like fear or scary things you must avoid/prevent, and greed, great things you want, plus more great things you want, and more.

Then I got hit by a truck. If a writer’s job is to make things new, brain injury can help. A step into any place starts you on a maiden voyage through a world turned upside down.

And then? Then I got old(er). I’m 30 or 40 or 50 years older than you, or 60 or 70 and aren’t convenient. You move at the speed of a New York minute and we can’t anymore. But open minded? Much more so than I would like. So open, in fact, — pieces keep falling out.

please