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The Chicken Soup Chronicles
By NORA EPHRON
Published: January 13, 2008
The other day I felt a cold coming on. So I decided to have chicken soup to ward off the cold. Nonetheless I got the cold. This happens all the time: you think you’re getting a cold; you have chicken soup; you get the cold anyway. So: is it possible that chicken soup gives you a cold?
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It’s much easier to write a screenplay on a computer than on a typewriter. Years ago, when you wrote a screenplay on a typewriter, you had to retype the entire page just to make the smallest change; now, on the computer, you can make large and small changes effortlessly, you can fiddle with dialogue, you can change names and places with a keystroke. And yet movies are nowhere near as good as they used to be. In 1939, when screenwriters were practically still using quill pens, the following movies were among those nominated for best picture: “Gone With the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Wuthering Heights” and “Stagecoach,” and that’s not even the whole list. So: is it possible that computers are responsible for the decline of movies?
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I love Google. I love everything about it. I love the verb Google and I love the noun and sometimes I can even use the word as an adjective. For a long time, I liked to think there would some day be a person called the Google, a mixture of a researcher, an assistant and a butler, who would stand by ready to ride to the rescue at all Google moments. No more desperately trying to come up with the name of that movie Jeremy Irons was in, which lurks like a hologram while everyone makes stabs at figuring out what on earth it was called. We can never remember the name of that movie, the one about Claus von Bulow, but never mind — the Google is here. The Google will find the answer. But as it turns out, no Google is necessary. Somebody has a BlackBerry. The answer is seconds away! It’s here! The movie was called “Reversal of Fortune!” What a fantastic relief! On the other hand, I have to say, there was something romantic about the desperate search for an answer. On the road to trying to remember the name of Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, for instance, you might find yourself having a brief but diverting chat about Alger Hiss’s wife, which might in turn get you to a story about Whittaker Chambers’s teeth, which might in turn get you to Time magazine, which might in turn get you to Friday nights at Time magazine back in the old days, which might in turn get you to sex. This meandering had its charms. It was, in fact, what used to be known as conversation. But no more. Instead, we have the answer. Ethel Rosenberg’s brother was named David Greenglass. And that’s that. So: is it possible that Google will mean the end of conversation as we know it?
Nora Ephron, the author, most recently, of “I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman,” is a contributing columnist for The Times.
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