corpus keanu
boy, had i a weird quasi-mirror-stage experience the other night!
i was watching jay leno but, you know, for over a year my tv is not really working properly : the images are distorted and stretched, and one quarter of the screen is missing. so i guess i have the viewing experience that an alien might have who’s coming from another planet and has to find out that here on earth his vision gets all screwed up. however, it’s amazing that for 98% of the crap i’m watching on tv it doesn’t really matter that the images are so ’surreal’.
so, anyway, i was watching the tonight show and the first guest was keanu reeves. he was there to promote is new film, and the moment he walked on stage i was startled. i had this feeling that you have when you’re seeing yourself on video and you’re thinking : ‘no, this isn’t me : i look differently, i walk differently, i talk differently’ and even though you’re quite unhappy with eventually seeing yourself like the rest of the environment has always seen you (because you have to realize that you’re less cool and less graceful than you’d suspected or hoped), you *do* recognize yourself in this stranger.
now, it might have been due to my distorted tv-image, but when keanu reeves appeared on the screen i - for a moment - had this feeling. as if i was seeing myself there : the movements, the tilted head, the small eyes. it was like a déjà-vu of some family video footage. now, a couple of people have pointed out during the past years that i supposedly bear a vague likeness to mr. reeves, even though i never really shared their view. but yesterday night i suddenly understood what they meant. even though it’s not so much a likeness with keanu himself than with his slightly uglier half-brother who has never managed to make a career in movies other than that he’s working at ‘blockbuster-video’.
