Karma (Part 1)

Karma (part 1) is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side.

Synopsis

• Joe: The day after a breakup, Joe describes a long fight with Kate on the phone in which he hangs up repeatedly. Joe tells Larry about the fight. He wonders if he should blame himself. Dylan Thomas went "into that good night." Kate's contempt for America, her acting career. Joe praises Kate, refuses to give us her phone number. Astrology, the book of ruins, a new age church. The absurdity of believing people control their destinies. Joe listens to his own show, considers and rejects suicide. Graphology and homosexual tendencies.
• Jack Kornfield: the power of mind, imagination leads to buildings.
• Joe: The origin of the breakup - a young woman uses Joe's bathtub, they make love, he refuses a long term relationship and breaks her heart.
• Larry: he describes a brief affair with a coworker, noting the instant it goes sour, giving away "love feathers." Life going downhill.
• Joe: Joe secretly records long distance calls with friend's friend, has them transcribed, meets the woman for a date and is not attracted to her. They meet again as friends, he tells her he recorded her calls. Joe's transcriptionist adds comments to the transcription. The woman freaks out, threatens to prosecute him, then tries to seduce him. A hanging during "Summer Day."
• Larry: A memory of making love. The weirdness of sleeping next to someone.
• Joe: He comes home, asks Kate not to meet him, and is disappointed. They fight on the phone. Kate accuses him of destroying the young lady's life, having phone sex with the long distance woman. She talks to Joe's transcriptionist.
• Larry: Joe as Odysseus before the sirens.
• Joe: Reading both sides of a conversation which references an erotic telephone call.

Music

• "Spacebeach" - Arling & Cameron (from Music for Imaginary Films, 1999) | YouTube

• "Brazil" - Antonio Carlos Jobim (from Stone Flower, 1970) | YouTube

• "Re-arrange" - Cinematic Orchestra (from Talkin Inside The Beat, 1999) | YouTube

Interesting Facts

The Karma series follows the breakup of Joe's relationship with an actress named Kate, cut with Jack Kornfield's Buddhism lectures and phone conversations with Larry Block and Debi Mae West.

Commentary

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