Strange New Archetype

I cannot get over the amount of people around here that look like celebrities. I guess in a big city you do see a huge assortment of faces, but these sightings seem rather more than chance and coincidence.

I passed a guy who looks like Jack Black in the hall. Same fashion sense too. Nicholas Cage was sitting three seats away from me in the drama lecture. He’s always there. Same hawk-like nose, same pinched expression in the eyes. Regina Spektor was just leaving her seat in cinema, beautiful hair. My cinema tutor, first time I ever laid eyes on him – Benny Hill. That’s how I remembered him. Couldn’t remember his name straight off but I could not mistake how much this guy looked like Benny Hill. Dr Moon (a character from the Doctor Who episode ‘Silence in the Library’, played by Colin Salmon) was waiting on the platform at the station I am nearest too.
Keanu Reeves is driving the bus this morning. Oh wow, now he’s the best looking bus driver I’ve seen. Young Keanu Reeves (you know, from the late 80s, when he was still good looking) meets Brian Viglione. Makes me all demure and bashful. There was a coy smile as I slipped my ticket into his slot… Ha! I kid, I kid. Though he keeps giving me eyes in the rear the rear-view mirror. He was yummy. Oh the bone structure. I could go on. The alert and make-upped looking eyes, the aquiline nose, perfect skin. Fit slim build. Enough!
Why do I have such a penchant for this celebrity spotting? Probie (Timothy McGee, from NCIS played by Sean Murray; and by the way I am not this switched on, I am Wikipediaing these people) just sat across from me on the bus. There’s a baby Lindsay Lohan next to him, right down to the singlet top and spotted scarf. The guy up the front looks like Rufus Wainwright, with braces – and not half as attractive I must say. Dear god! Martin Short just passed me on the way to the train station. Most striking resemblance yet.
My mind just spits out the labels. The plump guy having coffee outside the café - Ricky Jervais. Nah, bullshit. But well done on picking a relatively-unknown-over-here British comedian.

It’s an animal impulse. That keenly evolved systematisation and sense of pattern that humans possess, combined with that loutish exhibitionistic compulsion to shout out what you think.
People are strange. I got stared at by a stranger on the train the other day. Things have not been the same for me since that blog of Amanda’s where she talked about kissing that random guy on the street; and also since seeing that page of the newspaper devoted to people trying to reconnect with and pick up people that they didn’t have the guts to talk to on public transport. He was really looking at me. Up and down. When he thought I wasn’t looking, looking away when I did. And I had a good look at him too. I wondered where he was from, and where he was going. There was some purely random connection there, for some reason he looked, and something kept us looking too. And then he disembarked and was gone.

I have a tutor, the one who looks like Benny Hill, and he did the strangest thing last week. He delivered the whole tutorial to me. There are about 25 students in the class, and we all sit there in a small long room in front of a screen while he blurbs on about his favourite films. I came into the room, with my friend, and sat in the corner – as usual. The only variable I could notice was that on this day, I was wearing red lipstick. I answered the questions and talked about the kind of things I usually talk about. I can’t even remember what it was we were taking about, but he said something or asked a question and I replied, and then that sparked off something else with him, to which he agreed, and then it started to get awkward. I look people in the eyes when I talk, one could guess that; and he looked right at me when he replied, and then I looked right at him back and then he kept looking at me, and there was this whole intense eye contact thing going on. Then he would direct a few words of the sentence to the other 24 people, then back to me. Right at me, right down the line. Many sentences. Then back to the class, but then right back to me, full in the face. To them, and back to me. A question would be posed by someone else, he would give them an opening line and them deliver the rest of the answer to me. I looked him in the eyes but that was only out of respect and directness and he looked into mine because he was inspired, but he kept looking at me every few sentences and I couldn’t and didn’t want to keep looking at him, but I knew if stopped now he’d think that I was being rude, but by keeping looking I knew I was just encouraging him!
What a vicious and exhausting cycle. Thankfully I had my moment in the light and then he moved on to the next young uni thing in a low cut top. It really reminded me of something from Skins, the idea of ‘all the first years you could eat’. The rest of the dialogue is nothing to do with this, but I’ll transcribe it for you, it comprises some fantastically biting lines. A little background, Tony has had an accident in which he lost part of his memory and motor skills for a time. He enrolled in university after finally being able to just write his name. Earlier on Open Day he becomes lost and is late to the group introduction sessions. The lecturer insults him and asks him to “enlighten us, not bore us” and asks about his ‘animus’, quickly adding that Tony wouldn’t even know what animus meant.

(Wondering if I have to do a disclaimer here? I don’t own this; everything remains the property of E4. All dialogue taken from Skins Series 2, Episode 6.)

[Lecturer:] Eventful day. Pissing around in pools, smashing up labs, avoiding activities. Getting up to no good in the dorms…
[Tony:] How do you know what I–
[Lecturer:] And now you turn up, for an interview, like uh, well… Yeah I’m amazed you actually even bothered, really. But I’m a fair man. So bearing all that in mind; why don't you, try to convince me, into offering you a place at this university?
Oh you think you’re so original don’t you? I have met a million kids like you.Yeah, vaguely intelligent; agonisingly middle-class, read a book by Camus, a book by Kafka. No real substance though, just a little fucked up jumble of misdirected immature poly-sexuality; and pure, arrogant, impotent rage.
So; what you got big boy?
(Tony picks the lecturer up by the collar over his desk and brings him close to his face)
[Lecturer:] Get off me!
[Tony:] You don’t know a fucking thing about me you sanctimonious cunt. But since we’re playing the guessing game, lets make a few assumptions: a divorced, lonely, middle-aged lecturer who lives alone and gets his rock of–
[Lecturer:] You are really fucking blowing this…
[Tony:] Gets his fucking rocks off, tryna sleep with fucking first years. Other hobbies include intimidation and verted masturbation. I bet you thought you’d died and gone to heaven when you got here didn’t you? Ya own office, and all the students you could eat?
[Lecturer:] Let go of me.
[Tony:] Animus. It means spirit. Courage. Passion. Wrath. This is mine.
(Tony shoves the lecturer back into his chair)
[Lecturer:] Who the fucking hell do you think you are?
[Tony:] I’m a bad dream mate.
I’m you, before you shrivelled and died.
And I don’t want to go where you’ve been.
So, in answer to your earlier question; you should have given me a place here.
I’d’ve been the best student you ever had.