There are great moments in cinema and great moments in fiction. For example: Wallace’s party last year when we crowded outside the door to a bedroom and heard a voice from the other side shout: “Would someone please turn on the light? I’m being sat on by an elephant.”
We didn’t open the door. No one turned on the light. But we kept hearing that plaintive voice say: “Would someone turn on the light? I’m being sat on by an elephant.”
Amazingly enough, we started to hear the words in different venues. Someone at the party had let the words out. At the debate, one of the candidates for Governor, in response to an outrageous claim by her opponent, said with derision and rolls of the eyes: “Would someone please turn on the light? I’m being sat on by an elephant.”
The late night comedian used the complex expression after a joke aimed at a foreign country’s new Prime Minister and his message of financial reform. He said: “Would someone please turn on the light? I’m being sat on by an elephant.”
The there was the Youtube video that went viral and for good reason: It showed a pet dog wrestling with a pet wombat. A dialogue bubble burst above them that said: “Would someone please turn on the light? I’m being sat on by an elephant.”
After a nonsensical conversation on a morning news program, one of the so-called correspondents said, as a bookend to the ridiculous conclusions drawn: “Would someone please turn on the light? I’m being sat on by an elephant.”
Films followed. Jen-Luc Godard, for example, produced a film wherein actors in fine garments walked up to mailboxes, opened the sliding lids, and said into the container: “Allumez la lumière s’il vous plaît? Je suis assis sur être par un éléphant.”
Of course, over time, the statement changed. People sought economy; they sought emphasis; their brains grew tired of the complete paragraph. They said: “It’s dark and get that elephant off me.” They said: “It’s dark and I smell elephants.” They said: “Dark. Elephant. Ha Ha.”
Those of us at Wallace’s party, however, didn’t laugh. We neither repeated nor encouraged the request. We understood that there was something deeply serious behind those two sentences, a great mystery in that room with the lights out (had they been, really?) and someone being sat on by an elephant (how could Wallace have stored an elephant in the bedroom?).
