Jean-Marc and I exchanged a few friendly words in the Carré the other day. He was sitting on a bench reading and I was passing through so I stopped to say hi. 

  He told me a little about the French author of the book he was reading and then he asked me whether or not I had plans to see the latest blockbuster retelling of the Odyssey by this Christopher Nolan dude. 

  “Nah,” I said, “it isn’t something I’m too interested in sitting through.” 

  I tried to explain my reasons but I am not sure they bridged the divide between our outlooks on Life so to speak.

  You see, Jean-Marc is a nice guy but he is also a product of our educational system and hence a thinker. The last time we chatted he was urging me to have a conversation with Chat GPT. “You have to try it,” he enthused, “you’ll be amazed with what it comes up with! The amount of information it can provide is astounding. There’s no end to it!”

  “Exactly,” I replied, “but these days I am trying to live a simpler Life in the here and now. I move slower and do not need to see and do as much and I don’t want my moments cluttered up with more information than I can assimilate.” 

  “I get it,” he said (he didn’t), “but all the same the next time you have a question you really should give Chat GPT a go.”

  I laughed and as I took my leave I said: “not going to happen.” 

  So now, playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ as he put it, he was wondering if Nolan’s retelling of Homer might possibly be a classic in the sense of being a modern mythic adaptation to the ancient epic. 

  “Perhaps,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, knowing if an outlook bridge existed it was rarely if ever used and was in a terrible state of disrepair. 

  “Here’s the thing,” I said, mostly to end the discussion, “Walt Disney created a multi-billion dollar empire making entertaining cartoons of timeless ‘Once-upon-a-time’ fables. Lately Hollywood studios run by very smart people are remaking all these timeless classics for a new era and they are going broke doing so. Why?”

  “Because you don’t fuck with timeless classics, that’s why. They issue from deeper centres of our psyches and beings than smart people can possibly fathom and to ‘remake’ them ‘intelligently’ for modern audiences betrays a complete misunderstanding of what they are and who we are.”

  “So that’s all to say,” I said in summation, “I have little doubt Nolan’s Odyssey will make an Greek warrior boatload of money, but it’s just not something I care to spend three hours of my time sitting through.”

  I did tell him I looked forward to hearing his thoughts and impressions after he had seen it though. 

  With that we bid each other good day and I moved on. 

  I could hear soft jazz wafting over the air from somewhere else in the parc.