(A lesson from the philosophical revelations contained in Wile-e-Coyote expositions)
Never mind Keats and his arrested lovers on that Grecian Urn. Forget Romeo & Juliet and their immature rebellious love, Verona’s Bella & Edward with about the same amount of blood. As for Anthony & Cleopatra, anything that ends in clasping asps to bosoms is surely not to be held up as an example to the impressionable young. No – almost every essential element of the madness and obsession of love, the unrequited pent up passion is exposed in the timeless, beautiful, lyrical interaction between Wile-e-Coyote &Roadrunner.
In philosophical explorations of the deep, spiritually complex wisdoms to be learnt from Wile-e, I do not claim (I am not that foolish) that a full appreciation of all of life’s intricate conundrums can be unravelled by this genius. Clearly Wile-e-Coyote seems never to have studied Zeno (490 – 425BC) and The Paradoxes of Motion. Nor even Ockham (1288 – 1358) who stated what now seems to be the plainly obvious – i.e. the simplest route or explanation to resolving any problem is most likely to be the truest and best. Simplicity is anathema to Wile-e’s over-reliance on Acme products. Some might argue that Acme is Trotsky to Wile-e’s Lenin, and we all know how that ended!
At some point, but not here and not today, we might wish to pin down whether Wile-e is a Hedonist or a Nihilist but I digress. It is nearly February so let us focus on Love.
Despite being a poet I make no claims for understanding love. I’ve sadly failed in that particular poetic duty to write drearily and often on the subject. My only offerings in that direction take the form of one apparently obsessive piece about language and punctuation (even though the latter is often sadly lacking in my everyday writing.) A second concerns how much I love my washing machine and a third focuses on the erotic lives of snails and appears in The Iron Anthology of Humorous Verse (2010)
But Wile-e-Coyote, week after week, episode after episode wants one thing and one thing only. Unlike the aforementioned Romeo & Juliet, Ant & Cleo or even Ant & Dec, there is no hint ever of another object of passion. While-e wants Roady and if ever there is any doubt as to Roady’s real feelings, if ever the coyote looks to be flagging or loosing heart, Roady pops up to taunt him with such an obvious chase-me, chase-me come-on it’s nothing short of blatant. Some would say cruel. Wile-e dreams and schemes, risks his health and wellbeing in the face of almost certain failure. He is solitary and lacking in anything remotely approaching pride or self esteem. He is in the clutches of, at the mercy of the deep all-consuming desire we know as love.
Wile-e is so in the zone he even channels Descartes -I think therefore I am. Undoubtedly this forms the basis for the tenuous alternative reality created by Wile-e every time he paints a false road or tunnel that Roady then actually manages to run along or pass through. Wile-e then plummets to his inevitable temporary doom as the limitations of that surrealism, which he supports for the object of his desire, collapses in on his lovelorn desire-depleted self. It is his version of love poetry showing itself mere ephemera once the target of his yearning is past. The chase, although moving before our eyes unlike Keats’s Urn-bound lovers, is nevertheless seemingly everlasting.
We must conclude that the masters of literature have little to tell us that we could not learn in 3 minutes from a Wile-e-Coyote theatre piece.
In summary – love is an anvil on the head and going back for more!
In a future blog post we may get round to examining one of Wile-e-Coyote’s other major contributions to philosophical thinking,
Shit Happens!
For further reading on the subject of odd couples and extreme but unusual love try -
Eating the Vinyl
or
or
The Companion Contract
avail on amazon in hard copy or e-book :)
Next week – possibly
‘Thanks for holding - our agents know you are waiting!’