Gray's Anatomy

Narcissistic Spalding Gray hits middle age and looks Life right in the eye, with his one good eye, that is and runs terrified like Chicken Licken from what little he can see. You see, Spalding has what's known in the ocular malfunction biz as a macula pucker. Spalding says:

"...All of my friends laughed...They said 'I knew a girl in high school called Macula Pucker and she had syphilis...'..."

It turns out that a macula pucker isn't really a big deal and that it's a reasonably common middle-age problem rectified by a standard operation.

Operation?

Oh boy! Brought up as a Christian Scientist to believe that diseases are only there because you believe they are and tapping into the unregulated quagmire that is New Age medicine, Spalding hits the road to find an alternative cure, any alternative cure, that will stop him having to go under the knife.

"...Now I didn't want to go to hospital...A friend of mine went in not too long ago for a simple gallbladder operation and the nurse gave him a shot in the wrong quadrant of his buttock...and it hit his sciatic nerve, paralyzed his right leg and now he's suing the hospital for a million dollars..."

Punningly titled Gray's Anatomy after the medical textbook of the same name, Gray's Anatomy is also a "road" book of a kind, in which Spalding, the eternal dilletante, crosses the country in a state of hysteria. Yes, he's desperately looking for a cure and ready to trying anything new, almost, but he's certainly unable to commit himself to whatebver he finds*:

first stop is going back to his roots and contacting a Christian Science practitioner (kinda like a faith healer) which doesn't work out because Spalding insists on seeing other healers
then he gets mistaken for a bum by some Hasidic jews in their Pontiac who offer him some work cleaning their synagogue. Spalding does a brilliant job but then has to haggle with them for his pay
then it's off to a sweat lodge asking Ancient Red Indian spirits to cure his ills and the disturbing thought that his WASP ancestors might have killed the same Indians
then the Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons and more

...until he gives in and has the operation...

"...The doctor gave me a tape of the operation to take home. He titled it Swimming To Macula Pucker..."

Spalding Gray: Gray's Anatomy

"...Spalding Gray...is the funniest obsessive-compulsive neurotic whiner you'll ever encounter. Gray's Anatomy...delves less into his childhood traumas and more into the insanity and inanity of growing older in America..." Anon. Amazon reviewer

"...Another triumph for Spalding Gray...frantically explaining...his journey through various alternative healing methods to correct his rare eye affliction..." Anon Amazon reviewer

Director Stephen Soderbergh (Sex, Lies & Videotape) filmed the Gray's Anatomy monologue but added vox pops and other diversions to the monologue which is not to everyone's liking but certainly differentiated it from Gray's other movies.

Gray's Anatomy: the DVD

"...I loved the way this movie was edited. I loved the intercut anecdotes of strange things that have happened to people's eyes, the commentary on the movie, and the visual representations of Spalding's journey to ever more bizarre alternative healers. I have seen the movie four times, and it just keeps on getting better..." Anon Amazon reviewer

"...What I loved most about this film were Gray's frequent outbursts of humor - framed in frustration, delivered in sentences which resonate like poetry in the mind, this guy rages - quite literally - against the dying of the light..." NSR on Amazon

I'm biased, I love Spalding Gray and Gray's Anatomy is a wonderful, extreme snapshot of the hysteria that most of us feel as our bodies deteriorate. I'm sad that he is gone and I didn't hear about his demise in a series of dry, witty instalments. Damn!