I briefly considered titling this "post" "The Dead Monkey Exception," but that seemed grisly - not to mention disrespectful, considering how much I like monkeys. It is, in fact, my liking of monkeys that compels me to write. I have received word from Laura Lippman confirming that when it comes to her strict no-monkeys-in-movies policy, her famous character Tess Monaghan would make an exception for the dead monkey in SUNSET BOULEVARD. Lippman goes so far as to admit that there may be monkeys in other good movies. "Even as I write this," she confesses, "I am tortured by the memory of an actor turning to a monkey in a funny, bittersweet moment and the monkey being cold to his pain." That sounds like a Jerry Lewis movie to me, Laura! (Speaking of which, let me point out that the "post" that first prompted Laura to write me on the subject of chimpanzees features a picture of Lewis impersonator Sammy Petrillo mugging with a chimp, NOT Lewis himself! Lewis would have done something subtler, I'm sure. Or relatively sure. Also, I know that chimpanzees are not "monkeys," technically, but really, who cares, with the exception of some monkey-studying scientist somewhere with all his fancy science talk?) I will now do a "Google Image Search" for the words "indifferent monkey" to find the perfect illustration for Lippman's eloquent sentence. In fact, I will repeat that sentence here, because I really should have ended the "post" with it: "Even as I write this I am tortured by the memory of an actor turning to a monkey in a funny, bittersweet moment and the monkey being cold to his pain." Wow! Hold on a second. I found a whole "blog" called "The Indifferent Monkey." Here's a picture from it - rather grisly, like our original title. Dang! I've ruined the end of this "post" again. Wait. "Even as I write this I am tortured by the memory of an actor turning to a monkey in a funny, bittersweet moment and the monkey being cold to his pain."
