Telling a story about telling stories by telling a story

"OK, I'm Glad You Had This Little Talk With Yourself."*

-:- -:- -:- -:-

There used to be a show called The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, starring Blair Brown. It started off on NBC, but was cancelled; then it was picked up by Lifetime. We first watched it because it looked interesting, but the tone was discordant. Then I found out David Strathairn was on it (he wasn't to begin with) and we started watching it again.

David Strathairn played Moss Goodman. He hires Molly to work in his bookstore and they become romantically involved. He was strange and shy and awkward—probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. When Molly says she wants to talk to him and he thinks it's about their relationship, he can't look at her, he wants to go out to buy bagels. When she tells him she wants a raise, he brightens up—he's happy to give her a raise, he just can't talk about emotional stuff. When pressed, he tells her a story about how, when he was nine, he saw Ingrid Bergman bathing outdoors, and how he had thought that was the most beautiful thing he'd ever see until he met Molly.

Throughout this you can see Molly's impatience. Why is he telling her this story about Ingrid Bergman? Is it even a true story? Finally, she becomes interested, involved, and when he gets to the end, the part about her, charmed, touched.

That happened because this is a TV show.

When I was a little girl, this was my favorite joke:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad apple went away?

I loved this joke, but I seldom told it. At a very early age I understood that what made the joke funny was apple being annoying. If you only did the apple part a couple of times, the joke wasn't as funny; the more you could do the apple part, the funnier the punchline was. I knew this at seven, eight years old.

I also knew nobody would let me tell it right. Nobody would listen long enough.

Nothing has changed.

I used to think the writers of The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd weren't very good. When Molly first started working for Moss, she liked his strangeness. They'd spend days in the bookstore just reading, not talking to each other, just being together in their books. Then she became impatient with him, constantly annoyed because he was the same person she'd liked. I couldn't figure out what was going on; it seemed abrupt and badly written.

Maybe it was. But it's also what's usually happened to me.


*Lance Sweets