Inga M. Beck

Did you ever watch that movie Down Periscope (1996)? Well it’s one of my favorite films of all time. I’m not a big fan of war films, or war in general. But this one is great! Of course it doesn’t deal with actual war, but a series of war games. So yeah, it’s a group of grown men playing war, but instead of toys and tin soldiers they’re playing with actual nuclear submarines and ships etc.

Lt. Cmdr. Thomas ‘Tom’ Dodge (Kelsey Grammer), is known for taking things a little less seriously than his fellow sailors and having a unique way of leadership. So when it is his turn to get command of his own submarine, the navy gives him a rusty old diesel sub, the USS Stingray, and a part in a special war game: invading a big american harbor on a single rogue submarine. To aid him on this mission he is given a group of misfits and weirdos…oh and one woman.

Sounds epic, right?! Well it is. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it… now. Sure you can read this blog to the end, but it can wait. Find the movie, now. Watch. Go, go, go!

Anywho, one of those weirdos is E.T. ‘Sonar’ Lovacelli (Harland Williams). He is the Stingray’s Sonar Technician. He has a super power: His hearing. They guy hears everything, it’s insane, and I love it. I was just watching this film and I started thinking, what if my hearing was like that? What if I could hear things no one else does?

First of all, you must understand I’m a bit superstitious, I believe in ghosts and things that cannot be explained by simple science. I won’t specify anything in particular as I don’t want to start some sort of religious witchunt/comment-war on my blog, the fact that I beleive in ghosts will have to do. So, if I had super hearing, and I would hear obscure sounds from far away that I could not explain, I would become very nervwrecked, very fast. Things are bad enough as it is, all it takes is for me to be alone in an unfamiliar place and may brain goes wiiiiiild with every tiny sound I hear.

Another thing about me is that I like listening to others talk, far more than I enjoy talking myself. Not to say I don’t ever talk much, sometimes I just can’t shut up! However, I love listening to people talk, even if they’re not talking to me at all. Super hearing would both be helpful to that little fun and damaging as well. Damaging because in a large crowded place I would start hearing more conversations at once and I would need a lot of focus to stay on just one at a time. I don’t have focus. Except for special occasions.

Last but not least I’d get my dog, when her ears go all over the place in wonder, when I don’t hear a thing…maybe, just maybe we could wonder together. Also I really wish I could do that move-all-over-the-place with my ears. You should have seen her when (spoiler alert!) I was watching the scene where Sonar tries to imitate the whale calls to deceit the crew of the Orlando into thinking they were on the wrong track and had in fact NOT found the Stingray… when my dog heard those sounds she went like WHAT IS THAT NOICE AND WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?! She ran around my bed and into the hall and all the time her ears were like going in circles!!! ah, it was great.

Anywho, it’s a great film, and I’d really like to have great hearing. And don’t worry, like Lovacelli, I “[wouldn’t] hear everything, and I’m quite trustworthy, too.”