I just took my son, Reese, to see a one-man show at the Conference Center at Coastal Georgia Community College. The show consisted of one man who looked like a perfectly sane Edgar Allen Poe. The actor lectured on literary criticism and read some of Poe's best known poems. The crowd was larger than I expected, but it soon became obvious that they did not have any idea what the hell was going on in the darkened auditorium.
Several times during the performance, someone would clap at inappropriate times, such as when the actor would pause in the poem. One lone pair of hands would begin to clap, only to quickly realize their error and stop, but not before some other idiot had joined in on the applause. It was not just inappropriate cheering;there was also someone's cell phone blaring out the Battle Hymn of the Republic, while the cell phone owner frantically dug in their purse to silence the offending phone. Then there was the child in front of me whose mother had bought him a bag of cheetos during intermission so they could get through the rest of the show. Crinkle, crinkle, crunch, crunch. They were on the front row, right in front of me.
Although the actor was probably oblivious, or drunk, I felt acute embarrassment for my fellow citizens. Some were intelligent senior citizens who probably relocated here from a large city and, thirsty for a taste of culture, decided to grab an evening with Poe, only to have it ruined by their new compatriots in Brunswick, or as some call it, "The 'Wick." I don't know why I take this type of embarrassment to heart. Why do I care if strangers in the same room as I am, behave like backasswards lunatics? Have any of you ever experienced that feeling? I want to hear about it, unless it was me that embarrassed you by acting a fool.
2 comments:
Ok, so you're asking me if I'm ever embarrassed by others? EVERYTHING embarrasses me. Someone can say "good" instead of "well" at Kroger and I hurt for them. I know what you mean. What's worse is when I feel that way in the middle of an upper level college class.
I feel that way all the time. It's often related to intelligence or race. For example, I was embarrassed the other night when Jon and I stopped at a gas station at about 10:30 pm in Statesboro. Inside, there was a shim (I swear it looked like a slender boy but sounded like a girl with a throat problem) in overalls, a camo shirt, and complete black face on its face and hands in addition to a longer, curly red wig. I was ashamed that white people would act so stupid and do something so offensive. I was glad there were no other people in the gas station; alas, I was relieved too soon. A young black girl walked in after Jon and I got back in the car and just stared at the black-faced shim. She didn't say anything or look disturbed. She went back and got her soda and the shim checked out and left. I was ashamed of the redneck, white race.
I also get embarrassed when people say stupid things like (in regards to Henry James's short stories) "Those stories were crucial." There person in question meant "brutal," but she didn't know that's the word she should have used. I laughed, and still do everytime I think about it, but was embarrassed for her at the same time.
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