Is This a Desolate Hill

Hey! Remember when I wrote that book about cigarette lighters? And occasionally I used to see a little something I wished I had thought to include in my book about cigarette lighters? Last night I watched POINT BREAK for the first time ever - that's right! - and when the guy in the Reagan mask used a lighter and some gas to torch a car, it seemed like a significant vision, and I thought, eh, MAYBE I would have put that in my cigarette lighter book, but I didn't really care that I hadn't. BUT THEN I watched CRACKING UP. Hey! Remember how my old copy of CRACKING UP was defective? So, by utter coincidence, I ordered a new copy just a day or two before Megan Abbott went to see CRACKING UP at MoMA. And I haven't seen the ending in some years.

And near the end, Jerry goes up on a desolate hill and douses himself with gasoline and tries to set himself on fire... but he can't find his lighter! And I knew JUST where I should and would have put that in my manuscript. I wanted to include a still from that sequence for you, but I couldn't find a good one on the "internet," so here's one from PIERROT LE FEU, which, if I am recalling correctly, ends on a desolate hill with some explosive materials.