A Sardine on Vacation
Bob Castle, a.k.a A Sardine on Vacation has regularly published articles for Bright Lights Film Journal since 2000 and in 2020 his novel, The Hidden Life, was published.
The world is a conglomeration of over two hundred nations, many of which are barely functional, and even the most established nations have many, many problems.
Audrey Rose: Who’s this Sardine you’ve been writing about the last week?
Jackson Andrews: Joe already explained who he was.
Paul Peterson: I remember him mentioning it. The Sardine’s a moron.
Joe T.: Maybe you should unfollow me, Paul.
Generally, we’re all useless bystanders to the events happening around us or that we’re involved with. Anything significant goes on behind our backs. As if we’re programmed to ignore all the bad crap that happens in our lives.
When the Sardine speaks outside this column, nothing he says can be taken at face value. Nothing he says he really means. Half the time he’s quoting from movies, and half the time he’s quoting movies completely out of context.
“Instead of writing new Sardine articles, you should re-make the original book,” Joe T. interrupts my thoughts.
Really, who would publish, let alone read, this type of article in a newspaper? The column’s concept had developed in isolation from the public it had wished to attract. He was sorry for dreaming up the project.
Worse, the Today Show and Newsweek have contacted the Sardine for interviews, which the reticent fish wants to blow off. Also, the less the column has to say, the more intensely the nation’s readers have accepted it.
At first, he wanted to be part of the Sardine’s crew and be known by hundreds of thousands of people – and maybe more if the rumor about a television series had validity. This single-minded desire had kept him going through the barren days when he met hundreds of people who had never heard of the column...
