Judy Holliday and William Holden in Born Yesterday. Holliday's character, Billie, became an avid reader.
I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.
― Paul to Billie in Garson Kanin's, Born Yesterday
I've started a couple of winter projects this year. The first is what I call "slow re-reading" of novels I've kept on my shelves through more than twenty moves over the years, across the continent and across the Atlantic.
I wasn't born yesterday; I was born the day before yesterday. My book collection spans several decades and some of the pages are brown and brittle. Once re-read, I toss them into the recycle bin or donate them. But I won't do that until I have pulled some quotes and taken notes about the author's bio, narrative devices, and the armature of the book—the foundation that holds the book's "meaning" together.
I rarely buy new books these days. I belong to three libraries and borrow e books, though occasionally I buy an e book. In other words, once the novel is reread and I toss it or donate it, it's physical disappearance is final, like a death I suppose. Perhaps I am grappling with mortality or, at the very least, divestment of material possessions. That said, I think I get smarter every time I reread a book knowing that I won't keep it; it embeds in my heart, my psyche, and my brain. I hope this is not an illusion. At the very least, slow re-reading is a good discipline for a writer. And it's meditative, it forces me to linger, to take my time and disregard the fast moving social media world seducing me. Who needs that world? Who really needs it? Why have we been persuaded that we need it? Distraction is not the same as education. Some of our citizens are so distracted by social media scrolls and trolls that they are not thinking clearly. They are befuddled. They do not know what a disruptive calculating fascist is, or how he—or it—behaves.
So the election has surfaced after all, much as I try to suppress it for a few hours a day.
My second winter project is to immerse in old movies, many of them free, albeit with occasional ads. My husband, is a screenwriter and movies are his thing. Indeed, he is an encyclopedia of movie history. I, on the other hand, am on a movie history learning curve, which is good for my brain and my spirit.
First up the other night: Born Yesterday. It was made in 1951 during the McCarthy HUAC hearings which do not feel that long ago given the insanity in Congress right now and the prospect of worse. Indeed the setting of the story is Washington DC. Strange, how the capitol always looks sublime in a photo, a film, or the faux backdrop on MSNBC as the pundits pundit about our faltering democracy.
Holliday plays Billie Dawn in the film, a reprise of her stage performance. Billie is a "dumb blonde" hooked up with a mobster who is in DC to corrupt a politician. Holliday, the person, was not at all dumb. She started her career in a group called the Revuers, a Saturday Night Live-style political sketch show based in Greenwich Village. And because she hung out with left leaning activists, she was "called to testify" before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1952 chaired by Senator Pat McCarran who was trying to push anti-immigrant legislation through Congress and enjoyed targeting anyone of "Middle European" descent, Jews in particular. Plus ça change.
"Called to testify" isn't quite accurate; she had to defend herself against accusations of "communism." Her lawyer told her to pretend she was Billie Dawn and "play dumb," which she did, refusing to name names. But she still was black-listed and her career suffered, and so did she. She died at 43 from breast cancer. Her performance in Born Yesterday is her memorial and her legacy, an indictment of ignorance, and a celebration of a woman's acquisition of knowledge and emancipation.