In writing class yesterday, we workshopped a story by Matt Steele called “The Programmer Goes Back to Work”. It was written in a trance-y, dream-like prose, wherein the programmer shapes his own reality through programming languages, but ultimately fails to build the world he wants to live in. Dotty suggested that Matt delve into this theme more, perhaps having the programmer discover an equation that defines the world. Across the room, Holly and Shelley suddenly began thinking of the movie Pi (although I personally found that idea reminiscent of the end of the novel Contact).
“I just like the part where he drills holes in his head whenever he gets migraines, because that’s really what you feel like doing,” Shelley said.
“I thought that was a dream,” piped up someone else.
“Yeah, he didn’t really do that, that’s impossible,” Shelley responded, “but it’s just such a real image to me.”
I hadn’t seen the movie, but I put in my own two cents anyway. “Egon Spengler tried to drill holes in his head.”
There was a long pause, and finally Shelley started to say, “Who’s that–”
“In Ghostbusters.”
I finally retreated, beaten back by the blank stares of my classmates. Honestly, what is the world coming to when people haven’t seen Ghostbusters?