Sometimes life confronts us with hard choices

I would very much like to attend a lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. The guy is a Gambino-family insider who spent eight years in jail for committing some of the most lucrative robberies in US history, refused to cooperate with the FBI against former associates of the Gambino family, wrote a book (From Prison to Proust) and converted to Orthodox Judaism. There is nothing overly exciting about a Queens born mafiaman who resolved that, as if eight years waiting for freedom weren’t enough, he shall wait another 2000 years to shake hands with the Messiah. What struck me instead was the picture accompanying the article in Time Out about the Non-Motivational Speaker Lecture Series of which Ferrante is guest. The photo portrays a speaker giving his presentation with a tampax tampon stuck up his nose. At least I suppose that’s a tampon. The caption says it was a demonstration of ‘how to alienate your fellow passengers’. Would I feel alienated by sitting in the train next to a man with a tampon stuck up his nose? Is there anything a fellow passenger could shove up his nose without stirring feelings of alienation? A nasal spray, for example, which is thematically pertinent and thus rationally acceptable? His metro ticket, in case he's got no pockets (functionally understandable)? These are some of the existential questions that stirred my enthusiasm for the event.

Unfortunately we also have an invitation to an advance screening of a movie for tonight. My husband told me the other day that he couldn’t make it because the movie starts at 6.45 and he’s got a meeting at 5.30. So this morning I came up with the Gambino plan:

me: “You know, we could go to this lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. It’s at 8.00, which leaves you with plenty of time…”

husband: “Who’s Louis Ferrante”

me: “I don’t know, but look, he’s got a tampax shoved up his nose!”

Well, I guess my husband has been sitting in one of those useless we-can-save-the-world-you-go-first meeting this morning, absorbed in some tampax-themed soul searching. He called an hour ago to let me know that after all he’s not supposed to speak on any of the agenda items and thus he can make it for tonight’s movie.

My friend the TV advice guy explained to me that an advance screening is usually a longer cut of the movie, where the consulting firm organizing the event asks the audience for feedback, sometimes they hand out surveys and –quote- ‘you fill in whatever bubble you think is appropriate’. Having been denied the thrill of a lecture by a Jewish mafia man with a tampax stuck up his nose, I’m resolved to take full advantage of my advance screening experience and I have prepared a couple of answers such as “I think this scene best reflects Schopenhauer's nuanced differentiations of the universal substratum, propounding the nonrational, phenomenologist will as the ultimate reality’. I can see those Nielsen folks reading my inappropriate bubble and going “what the f---k?? Who does he think he is? Louis Ferrante?”.