The words came to me; I didn't seek them out. I was in an all-white room -- white floor, white walls, white ceiling -- when I heard a man's voice: "Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door."
This was at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco several years ago. I was touring an exhibit that used hidden speakers in a empty space to highlight the work of Jewish writers. The quote above, I learned later from Google, was written by Saul Bellow.
Those two sentences have stuck with me ever since. They came back to me again yesterday at a screening of "Birdman" at the Tower. A modern update on Bellow's comment came from Emma Stone's character, who tells her father, an aging actor: "You're not important. Get used to it."
The older we get the closer the wolf gets to the door.
Get used to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment