Thursday, July 11, 2013

“l'esprit de l'escalier”

Or, (Staircase wit)
It´s a French term from encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot.
Used in English to describe the predicament of thinking of the perfect           retort too late.

Allan Stewart Konigsberg Was born in the Bronx in 1935
or as we all know him 
Woody Allen 
In his 1977 movie Annie Hall  he
got inspired by this term.
 
He plays Alvy
Standing in line for a movie a man starts to talk loudly 
about Marshall McLuhan:

Man in Line
               It's the influence of television.  Yeah, 
                               now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms 
                               of it being a-a high, uh, high intensity, 
                               you understand?  A hot medium ... as opposed 
                               to a ...
Alvy 
                                              (Sighing and addressing the audience) 
                               What do you do when you get stuck in a movie 
                               line with a guy like this behind you?  I mean, 
                               it's just maddening!
Man in Line
               (Overlapping) 
                               Wait a minute!  Really?  Really?  I happen to 
                               teach a class at Columbia called "TV Media 
                               and Culture"!  So I think that my insights 
                               into Mr. McLuhan-well, have a great deal of 
                               validity.
Alvy
Well, that's funny, because I happen to 
                               have Mr. McLuhan right here.  So ... so, 
                               here, just let me-I mean, all right.  Come 
                               over here ... a second.
 
Marshall McLuhan
               (To the man in line) 
                               I hear-I heard what you were saying.  
                               You-you know nothing of my work.  You 
                               mean my whole fallacy is wrong.  How you 
                               ever got to teach a course in anything is 
                               totally amazing.
 
 
Alvy
                        Boy… if life were only like this!

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