A Convergence
of Convergences:
A Contest.
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For more information
about this contest,
click here.
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Contest Winner No. 10.
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Gutshot.
By Jason Torchinsky
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Sometimes it's easy to think that, possibly for storage reasons, the events and activities in our lives employ a few tired templates that dictate all the action. Only the nouns change. And, sometimes, if you're lucky, you can spot an old, familiar template in action. I think this is one of those cases.
I saw this a good while ago, in November of 2000, in an issue of Variety. It was a picture of the cast party for the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance, some boring-looking movie about golf. The picture shows Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, and J. Michael Moncrief (the kid). When I saw the image, something about it was so strikingly familiar; the actors, in all their cast-party horsing around, had unwittingly, I suppose, made themselves into a remarkably close tableau of the photo of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.
All the elements are there: at the center, the kid, doubled over in good-natured roughhousing, mirrors Oswald's less-good-natured grimace as the bullet enters his torso; lovely Ms. Theron, while arguably more attractive than the sternly shocked-looking detective Jim Leavelle, has nevertheless managed to mirror the rearward cant of his stance perfectly. Will Smith, in his unconscious role as Jack Ruby, is even wearing what appears to be the same kind of fedora! And, as the icing on this tasty cake, a delighted Matt Damon looks on, echoing the less delighted looks of the police officers in the background.
I wonder if the photographer was aware of the similarities. After all, the original composition won a Pulitzer!
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Editor's Response.
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Weschler was left speechless (an impressive testament!) by this bizarre resemblance. Challenge: Someone (preferably someone who has actually seen the movie) give us the poem around this rhyme.
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OTHER WINNERS.
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1. Evolving, Evolved by Charlie Hopper
2. Primal Forces, Basic Colors by Andy Hunter
3. The End of the Beginning by Holly Dunsworth
Intermezzo by Lawrence Weschler
4. This Is Not an Ad by Jimmy Chen
5. Catskills Vagina by Dan Clem
6. The Antipodes by Chris Zic
7. Self-Made Constriction by Sam Gaskin
8. We Are the Son by Danny Erker
9. Painfully Unaware by Dan Park
10. Gutshot by Jason Torchinsky
Weschler's Second Interlude
11. Love and War by Kim Wood
12. Inside and Out There by Lena Webb
13. The March by Emily Marvosh
14. Feminine Divine Triptych by Margit Christenson
15. Time's Deliberate Convergence by Steve Denyszyn
16. A Rousseau/Hirshfield Convergence by Adam Webb
Beirut/Warsaw by Lawrence Weschler
17. Clothesline Raising Over Carlisle, Indiana by Charlie Hopper
Carnival of Convergences
Weschler's Fourth Interlude
Aftersquib to the Foregoing
18. Pelvises All the Way Down by John Peter Rickgauer
19. Ovary Night? by Maya Muñoz
20. Christ in Space by Jonathan Shipley
A Pair of Convergences Off of Tina Barney
Another Carnival of Convergences
21. Moral Confusion: Iraq, Munich, and Vietnam by Donald Rumsfeld
22. Seeing the Tree for the Forest by Walter Murch
An Addendum to the Foregoing, and a Visitor Challenge
23, 24, and 25. Far Out by Michael Benson, Brian Christian, and Walter Murch
26. Jewish Bunk Beds by Monica S. Bland
Those Damn Swedish Trees, Take 3: Convergence of the Blogs
27. Degenerate Boogie-Woogie by Lisa Lee
Carnival of Convergences No. 3
28. Sand and Moon by Alison Cornyn
Actaeon: An Ovidian Impromptu by Lawrence Weschler
29 and 30. Hoods and Veils by Vero Testa and Lauren Redniss
The Onion/Bickle Convergence by Lawrence Weschler
31. The Lone Figure Against the Armored Swarm by Michele Siegel
32. Muscle and Flow by Benjamin R. Cohen
An Addendum to the Foregoing: Cities, Brains, Orchestras by Lawrence Weschler
Saint and Princess by Lawrence Weschler
Beauty Queen and Baghdad Hummer by Lawrence Weschler
Carnival of Convergences No. 4
Laughing, Clapping, Constantly Forgetting: A Trill of Readerly Associations by Lawrence Weschler
33. Lithographica by R.A. Villanueva
34. Papal Fire (Papa Lux) by Nick Feia
Addendum to "Laughing, Clapping ..." and, More Specifically, to the Stalinist-Applause Anecdote by Lawrence Weschler
35. Disseminations: Internet, Dandelions, Flight Paths by Sarah Daegling
36. Black and White and in Color by Walter Murch
Carnival of Convergences No. 5
Lee Friedlander's Visionary Trees: An Addendum to the Last Chapters of Everything That Rises by Lawrence Weschler
37. Shipwrecked Desperation by Charles Mudede via Matt Haber
38. Life Forms by Ariel Winter
MORE ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT RISES
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