Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

[This is a very old Non-review I posted on Facebook way back in 2017, November 3rd, to be precise. I repost it here verbatim so pay no attention to the rambling house-cleaning sentences. They’re now out of context. I’ll add some further memories after the initial block.]

—–Some of you might be asking, “Hey! What happened to those reviews about movies no one has ever heard of or cares about? I mean I never actually read them but I miss scrolling past them hurriedly!”

——-Well the answer is simple. I’ve been watching a ten hour documentary about post World War II problems made in the 1940’s. These are The March of Time news reels that used to be shown before films at the cinema much to young peoples’ chagrin. I know I’m irritated having to sit through 8 out of the ten previews before a movie. I can’t imagine having to sit through this… then again I did just voluntarily watch ten hours of them. Wow! That has to be some new kind of stupid.

—–Most was propaganda attempting to dissuade people from getting into alchololol and encouraging them to become farmers. After watching this, even I felt I should give up drinking and start a barley farm and I don’t even drink… or know what barley is. It was propaganda but it was well meaning propaganda so I forgive them.

—–I particularly liked the part that encouraged people to quit being so critical of school teachers’ private lives. The principal calls a teacher into his office and says, “Ms. Andrews, it has come to my attention that someone saw you accept a beer at a  subdued classy house party. You will desist these drunken rampages and become a barley farmer at once. That is all. You may begin.”

—–I’ll spare you the rest of the details because you ain’t never gonna watch it, so why the heck would anyone spend the time to read about it. I just wanted to tell you what I’ve been watching. It started with “M” and I’m watching everything in alphabetical order so I obliged myself to watch every minute of it. Also, I couldn’t bring myself to watch Mall Cop without owning Mall Cop 2. I’m just weird like that.

—–If you are looking for something old and absurd to lampoon, this is primo material.

2026 Update:

I’m not sure how much of the content constituted “Post-War Problems” but it was amusing nonetheless. They did eventually talk about Post-War Problems and Solutions though. For instance: War crime trials! Fun! <—-Sarcasm.

One part I now recall as particularly fascinating was an instance during a war crime trial where a young translator was translating to English the testimony of a German officer. In his description of certain events the officer vocalized a sound of a truck engine (if I recall accurately) and the translator was having trouble replicating the sound. He was laughing about it even. It was an odd moment of levity amid very grim proceedings. For some reason it made the whole affair very real for me. These people were human just like you and me, having to deal with this hateful murderous bullshit just like we are now. And yet they still clutched tightly to their humanity through it all, even resulting in nervous arguably inappropriate laughter at a war crimes trial. There was something simultaneously hilarious, sad, and beautiful about the moment. It reminded me of a line from Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan”:

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”

It’s a motto I try to live by.