This is just another way of delaying the start of tidying up piles of books, papers, and all the kipple that has bred since I have been away.
After mentioning death and taxis, I have been thinking about the symbolic role of the taxi in modern culture. The taxi is often the vehicle of birth and death, both Charon and Stork Delivery Service. Delivery of the pregnant woman to a hospital is a comparatively new thing, previously babies were delivered to the house. Mythology has had to adapt and as one cannot have hundreds of storks clattering about on hospital roofs what better vehicle for delivering babies than a taxi? Taxis already doing the dispatching side of the business.
Think of Charon and his boat and you will see certain obvious similarities with a modern taxi. Charon's boat was, after all, just a kind of water taxi.
Not that the taxi is the only form of transport for us to reach Heaven or Hell in the 21st Century. The train was highly favoured at one time. But it really needs to be a steam train, with all the steam, smoke and smell of burning coal. The black cab trumps the electric train. Buses seem a bit too commonplace.
I can only think of one example, though there must be others, of taking a bus to the afterlife and that is the excellent Norwegian film The Bothersome Man.
It seems appropriate that the best example of a Death Bus should be Scandinavian.
Birth is often a slower, personal and more intimate process than death; you can drop dead instantly in any old place or situation; so it has to be a taxi to the hospital. Do you remember the taxi in Janji Joni?
I hope that by now everyone who reads this blog, I know that there are at least four, has watched Janji Joni. One of my favourite films, and one of the best romcoms ever made. The whole film is on YouTube and I have linked to it below. So hook up the TV if you don't have a computer in your front room.
You have no excuses.
I'm starting to think of other taxi films and connections, I could write about this all day .....
Must start on the kitchen.
After mentioning death and taxis, I have been thinking about the symbolic role of the taxi in modern culture. The taxi is often the vehicle of birth and death, both Charon and Stork Delivery Service. Delivery of the pregnant woman to a hospital is a comparatively new thing, previously babies were delivered to the house. Mythology has had to adapt and as one cannot have hundreds of storks clattering about on hospital roofs what better vehicle for delivering babies than a taxi? Taxis already doing the dispatching side of the business.
Think of Charon and his boat and you will see certain obvious similarities with a modern taxi. Charon's boat was, after all, just a kind of water taxi.
Not that the taxi is the only form of transport for us to reach Heaven or Hell in the 21st Century. The train was highly favoured at one time. But it really needs to be a steam train, with all the steam, smoke and smell of burning coal. The black cab trumps the electric train. Buses seem a bit too commonplace.
I can only think of one example, though there must be others, of taking a bus to the afterlife and that is the excellent Norwegian film The Bothersome Man.
It seems appropriate that the best example of a Death Bus should be Scandinavian.
Birth is often a slower, personal and more intimate process than death; you can drop dead instantly in any old place or situation; so it has to be a taxi to the hospital. Do you remember the taxi in Janji Joni?
I hope that by now everyone who reads this blog, I know that there are at least four, has watched Janji Joni. One of my favourite films, and one of the best romcoms ever made. The whole film is on YouTube and I have linked to it below. So hook up the TV if you don't have a computer in your front room.
You have no excuses.
I'm starting to think of other taxi films and connections, I could write about this all day .....
Must start on the kitchen.