Watching Trump's Apocalypse

A certain kind of helplessness has always been part of our arrangement at the movies. After all, we did nothing to save Marion Crane. That poor, pretty woman had been set up from the start. Don’t we feel that as she keeps undressing? So it’s hardly a surprise after 40 minutes that she steps into a shower and finds a knife waiting for her. Not our fault, we said, as we staggered out of Psycho. And there was no one in the lobby waiting to arrest us as accessories to murder. Well, of course not, you are saying — don’t be silly; don’t be absurd! How were we responsible, or able to intervene in that beautifully calculated slaughter? It was just a movie, spasms on a screen, in another realm. The motel called itself Fairvale in northern California. Try looking that up. It doesn’t exist. But I can