Grendel’s Kitchen

I try — unsuccessfully — to get my hands on screenplays for my favorite films. This behavioral tic emerged when I was 8 and decided to memorize the witches’ lines from Macbeth by reading them aloud again and again. God knows what I invoked by doing so. I “evolved” from secretly reciting Shakespeare to memorizing lyrics from the liner notes of my albums. My K-Tel Records collections (received with great delight at every birthday from my Nana) offered words to live by in the form of Delta Dawn, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Knock Three Times, Little Willie, the lyrics of which I still have etched into my brain, squatting in spots reserved for directions from my house to [anywhere], car key coordinates, loved ones’ birthdays. And today, I can sketch out the architecture of some obscure schema for a now defunct CRM system in use in a small Brussels office of a major consulting firm.

“Alas - how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise?” ~ Robert DeNiro in Angel Heart

But I can’t channel this ability to memorize arcane bits of information. I’ve never found myself in the spotlight at a Karaoke bar gladly reaching for the lyrics to the Night Chicago Died or Love Hurts. My attempts to enthrall that adorable (though oh-so-dumb-but-really-who-cares-at-19) 6′9″ college basketball star with lines from Kenneth Rexroth’s When We with Sappho fell flatter than the old Spaulding my dog drags around the yard until I spiced up the evening by playing his favorite song: “You dropped a bomb on me,” the lyrics to which I sadly didn’t know. (I still thank my lucky stars for that omission from my repertoire or I might now be raising children twice my height in some Eastern European country that has a magic career pump for inflating erstwhile American pro-ball players with flat careers.)

“Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise!” ~Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex,” spoken by Teiresias

And yet I persist with films. On the commuter rail this morning, I accidentally (ah, but there are no accidents), came across a Polish site with subtitle translations for DVDs. There … my heart leapt as I scrolled down … was every last line from one of my all time favorite movies: Alan Parker’s Angel Heart!! Every word Mickey Rourke and Robert DeNiro sputter, chew on, mumble. Look, I don’t revere Jerry Lewis, so it’s not like I’m getting all French on the subject, but Mickey Rourke delivered the best work of his so-weird career in this awe-inspiring film. And DeNiro’s evil doer is masterful. Al Pacino, eat your heart out.