Like many of his projects of late, Vanilla Sky was essentially a vanity piece for Tom Cruise. Disregard the fact that it was a remake, which oddly co-starred Penelope Cruz reprising her role from the original film, and look instead at the fact that both the plastic mask and the disfiguring makeup Cruise sports through much of the film is the facial equivalent of a fat suit (“look, he really can act instead of just being pretty and strutting around! Oh, the novelty, but I’m reassured because there he is in flashback all naturally handsome.”) Despite these things like most films this one has at least one scene in it that will resonant for someone. For me that scene in one in which David Aames proclaims that he is a pleasure delayer, that he gets more enjoyment out of delaying pleasure than he often gets out of the event or action itself. Why does this resonate? Because I think that to a certain extent we are all pleasure delayers.
There’s an empty, gravel-filled lot on the back side of the strip mall where my local chain grocery store squats. Bordering this lot are the elevated tracks for one of our tertiary subway lines and a building that was once a bank but is now a Super Wash whose contribution to local culture is the constant smell of fabric softener. Several of us who have been around the area for roughly forever worried when Metro put in the subway line; adding those tracks cut that vacant lot in half. We wondered, worried, pondered, and some of us shook our heads sadly fearing that the lot would be too small to accommodate any of the traveling carnivals routinely hired by local groups as a fundraiser.
A couple of years went by during which we suffered the lack of Ferris Wheel rides and our blood grease levels dropped due to decreased funnel cake and corn dog consumption but then one summer a small carnival appeared. True, it was mostly rides for the under 42″ tall set but there were games, the ubiquitous giant slide, and yes, funnel cake. There is, in fact, a carnival set up on that very spot right now.
I visited this carnival on Sunday about an hour after they opened when the number of carnies outnumbered the paying customers and in many ways it was no where near as enjoyable as it would have been if the place had been packed to the edges with people. True, I got to walk on to the Ferris Wheel and got an extra long ride because, well, it’s not like the operator had people waiting. Yes, I got not only my own car on the Scrambler but I even got my own wing there were so few takers for the ride.
And then there were the games. OK, so I didn’t manage to shoot out the whole red star on the target but I got two chances to try without feeling pressured. And if I’d wanted to there I could have had a 50/50 shot at winning the cutest little duck at the clown race game (hit the target in the clown’s mouth with your water gun (let’s not get into the implications of that), first one to raise the hat to the top wins). But something about it all left me feeling sort of hollow. It wasn’t until I thought about it later that I realized: I didn’t really have to work for any of my fun.
There was no wait in line, no build of anticipation watching whether or not the people in front of me were having a good time or stumbling off the Samurai and barfing (I swear the Kanji on the sign next to the cartoonish, stereotypical drawing of a Japanese warrior must have said “you will be brandished and inverted” because damn if that wasn’t just what the ride did). There was, in sort, no time for my imagination to build up the experience up. No time to anticipate what it would be like, invest the experience with potential. Each ride, each game, each experience simply was what it was, no more, no less.
True, it is possible to build things up too much, to make them so grand in your imagination that the actual experience has no chance of living up to your expectations (take your first sexual experience or any four year-old’s first sighting of Mickey Mouse at Disney World as examples; neither lives up to what we imagine it will be). This is not to say that being handed something doesn’t have its pleasures; just ask Paris Hilton which is better having to work for your fortune or being born with it.
It is possible, I think, to enjoy experiences you don’t have to work for but is it possible to value them?
Isn’t it possible that human beings require some minimum investment in an event or experience, that we have to work for it even a little bit, for it to be a truthly worthwhile experience?
Just some things to ponder while I wait my turn for the fun house.