Read Online Miracle Monday by Elliot S. Maggin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elliot S. Maggin
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Clark suffered no such oversight.
Here were some of the other stories Clark mentioned on the news tonight:
Eleven hours after the snow had stopped failing, much of the city continued to be winter-bound.
The price of gold hit its first new high of the year this afternoon, and the price of imported oil did the same thing for the third time in the past six months.
The head of the state of Laos charged that the Prime Minister of Thailand was responsible for an outbreak in Laos of cholera, and the Laotian intended to put the Prime Minister on trial in absentia.
There was a plague of locusts in the sky over Brussels, Belgium.
And so forth.
Through these and all the other stories, Clark spoke his lines dutifully and professionally, as he watched a mental picture, frame by frame, of Luthor announcing his intention to escape. Clark had no illusion that Luthor might have slipped a clue as to his specific methods in the words he chose. The criminal was quite a bit cleverer than that. No, it was something else.
The show was supposed to end with a mildly amusing film narrated by Lloyd Kramer, which showed cars on the bridge below the Fifty-ninth Street Tramway sliding on the sleet and ice, bending up each other's fenders and breaking lights fore and aft. It was a fine report, actually, narrated in a flip, irreverent style. It had been a good story, in fact, during every major snowstorm of the past three years. Three years ago was the first time Clark had assigned the story, and by now it was getting dog-eared. Clark did his job with consistent efficiency and a startling lack of imagination.
Here is where Superman makes a mistake:
It is not a big mistake by the standard of the mistakes Superman is in a position to make. It is indeed a mistake, however—not an intentional cover for the purposes of reinforcing his Clark Kent disguise, and because of who made it, this mistake becomes just a touch horrifying.
The show was supposed to end with Lloyd Kramer's amusing version of Clark Kent's standard soporific snow assignment. It didn't. During the final segment of the "Evening News," anchorman and associate producer Clark Kent momentarily takes over the function of the director, Josh Coyle, who spends the two or three minutes of the final segment feverishly editing together videotaped scenes from the day's newsfilm to show with the credits at the conclusion of the program. The reason Coyle has to do this during the final segment is that only at this point does Coyle know exactly how many seconds he can allot for the credits. Coyle began putting together the closing videotape as soon as he cued the final commercial which preceded the last segment of the show. Consequently, Clark Kent's sole function during the two or three minutes that he is effectively the director is to cue the final tag film. That is, it is Clark's job simply to tell the technician in the booth with Coyle which film to slip into a little slot, and precisely when to do it.
What Clark Kent was supposed to tell the technician, as the final commercial ended and Josh Coyle played with his tapes, was, "Cue the tramway film for seventeen seconds." This meant that the final segment would consist of Clark talking for seventeen seconds, followed by Lloyd Kramer's film.
What Clark actually said was, "Cue the Luthor film for seventeen seconds." Then, as the technician sitting next to the preoccupied Josh Coyle slipped the wrong tape into the videotape player and the live image of Kent at his anchor desk in Studio B returned to a million people's television screens in the Metropolitan area, Kent read from his prepared text: "A few hardy and perhaps a few foolhardy souls did, for reasons known only to them, venture among the elements today. Our man Lloyd Kramer watched some of them this afternoon on the Outerborough Bridge from his vantage point on the Fifty-Ninth Street Tramway. This is what he saw."
Clark Kent, running through his mind the same scene that was now
Here were some of the other stories Clark mentioned on the news tonight:
Eleven hours after the snow had stopped failing, much of the city continued to be winter-bound.
The price of gold hit its first new high of the year this afternoon, and the price of imported oil did the same thing for the third time in the past six months.
The head of the state of Laos charged that the Prime Minister of Thailand was responsible for an outbreak in Laos of cholera, and the Laotian intended to put the Prime Minister on trial in absentia.
There was a plague of locusts in the sky over Brussels, Belgium.
And so forth.
Through these and all the other stories, Clark spoke his lines dutifully and professionally, as he watched a mental picture, frame by frame, of Luthor announcing his intention to escape. Clark had no illusion that Luthor might have slipped a clue as to his specific methods in the words he chose. The criminal was quite a bit cleverer than that. No, it was something else.
The show was supposed to end with a mildly amusing film narrated by Lloyd Kramer, which showed cars on the bridge below the Fifty-ninth Street Tramway sliding on the sleet and ice, bending up each other's fenders and breaking lights fore and aft. It was a fine report, actually, narrated in a flip, irreverent style. It had been a good story, in fact, during every major snowstorm of the past three years. Three years ago was the first time Clark had assigned the story, and by now it was getting dog-eared. Clark did his job with consistent efficiency and a startling lack of imagination.
Here is where Superman makes a mistake:
It is not a big mistake by the standard of the mistakes Superman is in a position to make. It is indeed a mistake, however—not an intentional cover for the purposes of reinforcing his Clark Kent disguise, and because of who made it, this mistake becomes just a touch horrifying.
The show was supposed to end with Lloyd Kramer's amusing version of Clark Kent's standard soporific snow assignment. It didn't. During the final segment of the "Evening News," anchorman and associate producer Clark Kent momentarily takes over the function of the director, Josh Coyle, who spends the two or three minutes of the final segment feverishly editing together videotaped scenes from the day's newsfilm to show with the credits at the conclusion of the program. The reason Coyle has to do this during the final segment is that only at this point does Coyle know exactly how many seconds he can allot for the credits. Coyle began putting together the closing videotape as soon as he cued the final commercial which preceded the last segment of the show. Consequently, Clark Kent's sole function during the two or three minutes that he is effectively the director is to cue the final tag film. That is, it is Clark's job simply to tell the technician in the booth with Coyle which film to slip into a little slot, and precisely when to do it.
What Clark Kent was supposed to tell the technician, as the final commercial ended and Josh Coyle played with his tapes, was, "Cue the tramway film for seventeen seconds." This meant that the final segment would consist of Clark talking for seventeen seconds, followed by Lloyd Kramer's film.
What Clark actually said was, "Cue the Luthor film for seventeen seconds." Then, as the technician sitting next to the preoccupied Josh Coyle slipped the wrong tape into the videotape player and the live image of Kent at his anchor desk in Studio B returned to a million people's television screens in the Metropolitan area, Kent read from his prepared text: "A few hardy and perhaps a few foolhardy souls did, for reasons known only to them, venture among the elements today. Our man Lloyd Kramer watched some of them this afternoon on the Outerborough Bridge from his vantage point on the Fifty-Ninth Street Tramway. This is what he saw."
Clark Kent, running through his mind the same scene that was now
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