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- 2797 movies, but they're certainly nothing to rave about. In the first place, I hate actors. They
2798 never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight
2799 way, but not in a way that's fun to watch. And if any actor's really good, you can always
2800 tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it. You take Sir Laurence Olivier, for example. I
2801 saw him in Hamlet. D.B. took Phoebe and I to see it last year. He treated us to lunch first,
2802 and then he took us. He'd already seen it, and the way he talked about it at lunch, I was
2803 anxious as hell to see it, too. But I didn't enjoy it much. I just don't see what's so
2804 marvelous about Sir Laurence Olivier, that's all. He has a terrific voice, and he's a helluva
2805 handsome guy, and he's very nice to watch when he's walking or dueling or something,
2806 but he wasn't at all the way D.B. said Hamlet was. He was too much like a goddam
2807 general, instead of a sad, screwed-up type guy. The best part in the whole picture was
2808 when old Ophelia's brother--the one that gets in the duel with Hamlet at the very end--
2809 was going away and his father was giving him a lot of advice. While the father kept
2810 giving him a lot of advice, old Ophelia was sort of horsing around with her brother,
2811 taking his dagger out of the holster, and teasing him and all while he was trying to look
2812 interested in the bull his father was shooting. That was nice. I got a big bang out of that.
2813 But you don't see that kind of stuff much. The only thing old Phoebe liked was when
2814 Hamlet patted this dog on the head. She thought that was funny and nice, and it was.
2815 What I'll have to do is, I'll have to read that play. The trouble with me is, I always have to
2816 read that stuff by myself. If an actor acts it out, I hardly listen. I keep worrying about
2817 whether he's going to do something phony every minute.
2818 After I got the tickets to the Lunts' show, I took a cab up to the park. I should've
2819 taken a subway or something, because I was getting slightly low on dough, but I wanted
2820 to get off that damn Broadway as fast as I could.
2821 It was lousy in the park. It wasn't too cold, but the sun still wasn't out, and there
2822 didn't look like there was anything in the park except dog crap and globs of spit and cigar
2823 butts from old men, and the benches all looked like they'd be wet if you sat down on
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2824 them. It made you depressed, and every once in a while, for no reason, you got goose
2825 flesh while you walked. It didn't seem at all like Christmas was coming soon. It didn't
2826 seem like anything was coming. But I kept walking over to the Mall anyway, because
2827 that's where Phoebe usually goes when she's in the park. She likes to skate near the
2828 bandstand. It's funny. That's the same place I used to like to skate when I was a kid.
2829 When I got there, though, I didn't see her around anywhere. There were a few kids
2830 around, skating and all, and two boys were playing Flys Up with a soft ball, but no
2831 Phoebe. I saw one kid about her age, though, sitting on a bench all by herself, tightening
2832 her skate. I thought maybe she might know Phoebe and could tell me where she was or
2833 something, so I went over and sat down next to her and asked her, "Do you know Phoebe
2834 Caulfield, by any chance?"
2835 "Who?" she said. All she had on was jeans and about twenty sweaters. You could
2836 tell her mother made them for her, because they were lumpy as hell.
2837 "Phoebe Caulfield. She lives on Seventy-first Street. She's in the fourth grade,
2838 over at--"
2839 "You know Phoebe?"
2840 "Yeah, I'm her brother. You know where she is?"
2841 "She's in Miss Callon's class, isn't she?" the kid said.
2842 "I don't know. Yes, I think she is."
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