Faustian Pact
blog
I had a drink last night — two glasses of rioja — and am still alive. The Faustian pact I had made (exquisite clarity in exchange for never drinking exquisite claret) was broken without any Mephistophelian consequences. Indeed, the only effects I felt at the time were dehydration and bonhomie.
The day after, I am sluggish and undisciplined. I haven’t quite gone to seed, but I am eating a lot of nuts. Overall, I think I am probably better off alcohol because it gets in the way of flow experience, which is a greater pleasure than the light head of the drunkard, but it is nice as an occasional indulgence.
After a month of soft drinks, the taste of wine was like nothing else — so varied and complex — only a great cup of tea or single malt whisky can in any way compare. I have never understood those people who don’t drink alcohol because they “don’t like the taste.” What fools! Don’t they know that the best tastes in life are acquired tastes? An acquired taste is best because it expands your palate, forcing you to endure and adapt rather than mewl like a baby because you don’t like the immediate sensation.
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Last night I had the brilliant idea of a Shazam but for films. The idea is that via keywords and questions, this service would work out what film it is that you’re trying to remember. As it is, I haven’t got time to develop the idea but am happy for someone else to become rich with it so long as you can tell me what these two films are whose titles I have forgotten:
The first one depicts life after a plane crash (?), which has left several men and two women (one young, one old) on a paradisal desert island. The key scene (the one that made me remember it) is where one of the men gets bitten on his hand by a snake and a survivalist character takes his arm and chops it off with an axe. This is bad enough, but the next twenty minutes have this guy wailing in agony as he slowly dies without painkillers or antibiotics.
The second is about a social worker whose case involves a forty year old man with the mental age of a baby whose mother has made it her mission to stop him from growing up, beating him if he shows any mental aptitude. At the end of the film, it looks as though he’ll be rescued and allowed to live freely with the social worker, but it turns out that she also keeps a man as a baby!
Any ideas of what these are called? I don’t think they are just bad dreams I once had.