Dec. 16: Beast friends

Tonight, my son and I are going to watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which is the best Christmas movie ever made and, quite possibly, my favourite movie of all time. It is the very best of the Bond movies, the first where 007 is allowed to be completely vulnerable. It is a movie that should NEVER be watched in the summertime. Now, with snow flying outside and Christmas right around the corner and with COVID still in my lungs, this seems the opportune time to watch it.

I don't know how the director, Peter Hunt, did it, but he managed to capture a mood of isolation. I've watched that movie perhaps 30 times by now and every time I watch it, I'm concerned for Bond's survival. Not just for him, though. If Bond doesn't get to the bottom of that mountain - evading those SPECTRE agents with machine guns - then the whole world is in danger.

Toward the end of it, Bond has just dispatched his nemesis, Blofeld, on a bobsled track. A St. Bernard comes to Bond's rescue. A true beast friend.

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"Do you think animals have souls?'

The question came from my best friend sometime in early 1996. He had called me while I was working on a play that I had written. I was moderately annoyed; I had creative stuff to do and didn't want to waste a lot of time on a metaphysical conversation. Then he told me that his cat had died, had choked to death on something it had picked up off the fire. The cat died in his hands.

Sensing that my best friend needed me, I offered to pick him up. We ordered a pizza and took it back to the rehearsal space and I listened to him vent about his cat. He said that his father had cried. His sisters had cried. His brother had cried. Only his mom didn't cry. She explained that she was taught one shouldn't cry over a deceased pet, that you should only cry when you lose a human.

We ate our pizza and by the end of the evening, my best friend had shed all the tears he had for his cat, which was nothing but a bunch of carbon and other atoms that had come together in a flesh machine that we decided to call "cat."

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I am a dog person, even though I haven't owned a dog in more than two decades. I left home for good in 1998 and have been an apartment dweller ever since. 

But whenever I see a dog on the street, I always try to get some doggie time. This is especially true if the dog is a St. Bernard, which is my favourite dog breed. Seriously, I have been known to get out of my car when I see a St. Bernard. I have dropped conversations and completely ignored my companions when I see St. Bernards. One year, I did a magic show at a private Christmas party. The family had a St. Bernard, which was locked up in the next room. The St. Bernard kept howling. He was a social dog and couldn't bear to be locked up when there were so many fascinating strangers to greet.

After the show, the host allowed me to go say hi to the St. Bernard. They let me take a picture too. Here is the picture of the St. Bernard:

Here is a transcript of my conversation with the St. Bernard.

Shteevie: Doggie! Doggie doggie doggie!

St. Bernard: Slobbers on Shteevie

Shteevie: Doggie doggie doggie

St. Bernard: Jumps up on Shteevie and licks his face.

Shteevie; DOGGIE!!!!!