prince of serendip

after nick and anna went to bed i switched the remote to the movie channels to see what's to see. revenge of the nerds [1984] was about half-way thru. i tuned in where the nerds pay a visit to u.n. jefferson, assayed by the gallant bernie casey, head of the fraternity lamda lamda lamda in order to found their own chapter at adams college. this is a wonderful comedy. long a favorite of mine so i watched it all the way to the rousing finale with the nerds gathering the crowd at homecoming to the swelling chords of 'we are the champions' by queen. brings a tear to my eye everytime.

what caught my eye tonight is gilbert's [played by anthony edwards] girlfriend, judy of the omega moos, who looked terribly familiar but i couldn't quite place her face. then i remembered her other films. i always thought that the character judy was pretty cute underneath her large-rimmed glasses and oversized coveralls, details that try to hide her prettyness and emphasize a nerditude favored by the filmmakers. judy is played by michelle meyrink who turned in another nerd love interest in real genius [1985] and one of the cool val-chicks in what i humbly consider one of the great love stories of all time valley girl [1983]. meyrink i don't think did very many roles after the 1980s.

so i looked her up at imdb.com and on the message board i learned meyrink is in a documentary on zen buddhism titled zen buddhism: chop wood, carry water that can be watched in its entirety at youtube.com. guess what i did next. yep, i watched the documentary. now here is where it gets interesting, at least for me. recently i've been reading the poems, essays, and blog of zen priest/poet norman fischer and fischer, along with meyrink, is the focus of the documentary. there you have it, movies and poetry, and zen, in one place as if the planets aligned and brought it all home as a single package.

goofy yeah, but i'll take what i can get. the documentary is okay, doesn't dive very deep into its subject but how could it at less than 30 minutes. it is lovely to see both fischer and meyrink [who is still very cute, by the way] and their practice of zen buddhism. i'm not a buddhist but there is much to the discipline i find very agreeable to my own outlook and temperament.

you can watch the documentary here in parts 1, 2 and 3.