Random thoughts while in the checkout line at Target

While waiting tonight to wheel my shopping cart toward the cashier, I couldn’t help noticing a display for DVDs marked down to $13.78 each. Among the titles: Brokeback Mountain, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Crash, The Producers, Pride and Prejudice, Wedding Crashers, Memoirs of a Geisha, Jarhead, Prime and on and on. There they were: big hits alongside also-rans, Oscar winners alongside box-office busts, popcorn flicks alongside critical darlings, instant classics alongside the instantly forgettable. And I couldn’t help thinking of that final line from Barry Lyndon: They are all equal now.