Paulie in the Sky with Spuds
Ever get through some sort of boring process by imagining that you're explaining it to a camera? "And when I've put the garbage in the bin, I'll go upstairs and collect the recycling..." Well, apparently other people do it too, but with a camera. Thus we have YouTube - Paul McCartney making mashed potatoes. He likes to put onions in his mashed potatoes; how do you like yours?
He's still the cute one.
He's still the cute one.
posted by Madeleine Robins at 9:01 AM
6 Comments:
I suspect that many people run such mental scripts while performing some act, either to pass the time or to help explain what they are doing to themselves.
I offer explanations, not to an imaginary camera, but to someone from a few generations or centuries ago. Usually not an imaginary figure, but someone, often a writer, whose cast of mind I know.
This sounds awfully silly -- I have never before admitted to it -- but I suspect that others do it, or something like it, too.
I do too--in a variety of differnent ways: explaining to someone from the past, to someone in the future, as part of an interview. It's an easy thing to fall into.
Is this something that writers do, or that fantasy-minded folks do, or that most people do? I don't know.
I could ask my wife, but she looks at me funny enough as it is.
So one more funny look would be a problem?
In an extremely informal survey, I asked the only other person I had to hand (Sarcasm Girl) if she ever did this. She said Yes. Of course, while she's not a writer (not yet, anyway...at sixteen, who knows what she'll be) she is a performer, and used to facing an audience. So perhaps I need a larger sampling. Anyone?
Okay, I've got another datapoint for you. Pamela not only does not do this, she had a bit of trouble understanding what you and I were writing about. And she gave me another funny look.
(Pamela is extremely bright, but I have always known that she thinks very differently than I do. She is not remotely performative, even to the degree that writers are. And I suspect that many people commonly considered "unimaginative"
-- whether justly or not -- are the same.)
Danny gave me a funny look too. I wonder: is he the Martian or am I?
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