Gatsby Eyes

Mom and I saw The Great Gatsby after some awesome guacamole and chips at La Parilla not long ago. The two of us are discriminating guacamole girls; in fact, she makes some of the best guac this side of Mexico.  La Parilla prepares guacamole fresh at the table to order and we judged it sublime.

This version of Gatsby was breathtaking in terms of the costuming, the cinematography, the direction...it blessed my Art Deco heart.  Mom thought it was even better than F. Scott Fitzgerald's book.  Since I believe that movies often ruin adaptations of books, this was high praise.

As she and I discussed the movie on the way home, we both felt it was a morality tale with many applications to the excesses from which America is trying to recover.

The fleeting nature of fame and adulation depicted in Jay Gatsby's fall from grace has a number of parallels to the Paula Dean Witch Hunt.  I'll digress just a moment on that to say that Paula apparently said something offensive and ill-advised 20 years ago.  Now she is losing the business she worked years to build while rappers repeatedly use the same word to the delight of all their fans.

One of the themes in Gatsby is a faded billboard advertising the services of an eye doctor. The "eyes" keep watch over an area on the wrong side of the tracks between posh "East Egg" on Long Island and New York City.

Many literary critics believe that these eyes represent the eyes of the Almighty, observing all the transgressions which occur below. Ultimately, the eyes bear witness to a vehicular homicide committed by an idle rich woman, distraught and drunk after an afternoon of excess in a swanky Manhattan hotel.  I've been thinking about those watchful eyes ever since I saw Gatsby.

Dr. R.E. Titcomb, who practices in Cape Charles on Virginia's Eastern Shore, must be a Gatsby fan.

We saw this optometrist's office during a drive last weekend.

The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
Proverbs 15:3