Bonne Chance

Smiler with a Knife

Monkey: Hey.

DAH: Hey, back at ya.

Monkey:

DAH: What're you doing?

Monkey:

DAH: Just sitting there smiling?

Monkey:

DAH: It's kinda creepy.

Monkey: Yeah.

DAH: Like a smiler with a knife.

Monkey: That sounds cool! What is it?

DAH: It's from Chaucer, actually.

Monkey: Where's Chaucer? Wait, is that near Cucamonga?

DAH: Geoffrey Chaucer.

Monkey: And who, praytell, is Geoffrey Chaucer when he's at home?

DAH: He was a 14th Century English author. He wrote 'The Canterbury Tales.' It's from one of those stories, 'The Knight's Tale,' -- 'The smiler with the knife beneath the cloak.'

Monkey: It still sounds cool. Scary.

DAH: Suspenseful. The idea that someone could seem safe and friendly, but might have a hidden knife, ready to slip between your ribs.

Monkey: I'm not too worried. No ribs. I'm just a stuffed sock, really.

DAH: Stuffed sock?

Monkey: Never mind. Talk more about the smiler.

DAH: Well, I like the whole notion of the smiler with a knife. The idea that there is always risk, and lurking danger, even when you think you're safe.

Monkey: Something might happen.

DAH: Anything might happen.

Monkey: So it's potential, too. If anything might happen, something good might happen. Maybe the smiler is there to protect us.

DAH: Or something bad. Maybe the smiler is just lulling you into a false sense of security. It's a kind of tension, balanced on the sharp edge of that blade.

Monkey: Yeah. Scary.

DAH: I'd kind of like to live my life like that. I do, on stage, when I'm acting.

Monkey: What?

DAH: Even if I'm calm on the surface, I want to be wound tight inside, channeling all energy, for good or ill, like a force of nature. I think people pay attention to that. They can feel that something is about to happen. They just don't know what. So they have to keep watching.

Monkey: Now you're starting to sound a little self-absorbed and crazy. Kinda intense.

DAH: Maybe.

Monkey:

DAH: Just sitting there smiling again, huh?

Monkey:

DAH: Am I just supposed to watch you?

Monkey: Maybe I've got a knife.

DAH: Stuffed sock.

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com

Five Movies

Know me through five movies.

They're not really my five favorite movies (although I do like them all).

But they do all represent something essential of me.

Do you know 'zeitgeist?'

Think of these movies as varied expressions of 'DAHgeist.'

(OK, all I really needed was the 'geist' bit of German, but I figured nobody would understand what I was talking about. Whereas, some of you might have heard or read about 'zeitgeist' – although that word really only serves to introduce and explain the concept of 'geist')

I don't know that I need say anything more.

Either you've seen these movies, and remember them, in which case you already know me.

Or you will try to see some of these movies, because you'd like to get inside my head a bit more.

Or you really don't care that much.

That's OK, too.

These are the five movies. Seems like there ought to be common link. But the only thing I can see offhand is that Hal Ashby directed two of them.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Harold and Maude (1971)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Being There (1979)

Say Anything (1989)

DAH is David Anthony Hance at www.DAHplaytime.com