The Knife has a Hinge

Sometimes it will hit me at random when I'm walking down the street, or getting up to use the restroom, or taking a bite of a new-made sandwich. Patrick has never seen Chinatown. This thought will burst across my brain with no preamble, and each time I am surprised by the new discovery: Patrick has never seen Chinatown. Patrick has never seen Roman Polanski slice Nicholson's nose; Patrick must be protected at all costs from jokes that would spoil the ending. It may sometimes seem that Patrick knows an awful lot about Orange County water rights, but this is a red herring.

On the surface, this seems a very simple problem to fix; I have access to not one but three different copies of Chinatown, none of which would cost me anything or have a return deadline. However, it never seems especially important - there are other movies that Patrick hasn't seen, many of them, many movies that I haven't seen, many books and plays and paintings. Is Chinatown more important than Beethoven? There are moments when I know absolutely that it is, but these are never the moments when I am near a copy. These are the moments I am walking and eating and pissing away.