Pics or it (might’ve) happened

Last weekend the Whittenberger Auditorium showed a modern classic film, New Moon. At the late Saturday showing, something wonderful happened.

About 20 minutes in, a man stood up in the front. He yelled, “That is it! I can’t take this movie anymore!”, ripped his shirt down the front and ran out screaming from the theater.

That man was me. The week-long mystery gripping the campus has been solved. It was planned ahead of time, but I did not record it; and that has made all the difference.

The tale’s gotten laughs during the house-party rounds, but with every iteration of the story, I’ve been playfully admonished for not taping it and putting it online.

To be honest, I intended to and had a cameraman hidden five rows back. He failed to record it, thus guaranteeing I will continue asking people “Do you know how this works?” whenever I give them my camera for the rest of my life.

But this detail triggered something other than mild disappointment; it made my attempt at movie critique a failure.

In a world that now transcribes the littlest details, not having physical proof with five alternate sources makes anything else seem like it didn’t happen. I do not have evidence for this claim; I have only my recollection. Maybe that’s not so bad all the time.

There are occasions when listing proof is necessary, such as when writing academic papers, when listing alcohol content on beverages and when a girl claims you knocked her up.

And nothing has ruined modern news more than allowing stories to hit the air with just “sources say.” Someday a journalist will take this to the next step and yell at a press conference, “Mr. president, sources say you sneak away from the White House at night and feast on the blood of D.C. hookers. What say you?”

But it’s tragic that we’ll never have new fables, modern day stories to tell our children.

I’ll never be able to tell the tale of Travis Allen, the boy who wrote a 30-page paper in five hours with a broken hand because there will be numerous ways to prove it was only seven pages and nothing more than a hand cramp.

This might appear to be a simple musing rather than hard reporting. Elsewhere on this page Ashley Ames is likely breaking down hard economic strategy and Nick Wallace is surely waxing verbose about the latest issue to pique his interest.

Just let me be the Willy Wonka of the IDS today, asking you to suspend your disbelief for the non-important things. Magic is more fun when you can play dumb and not look for what’s hidden up the sleeves.


E-mail: cquandt@indiana.edu