The Grand Existential Crisis of Barbara Orville-Jenkins
Why are we here? Seriously, what's the point? As I ponder these questions that chew at the edges of my existential dread like a rat with a slice of cheddar, I'm reminded of the great Barbara Orville-Jenkins. She was rumored to have shuffled off this mortal coil recently at the ripe age of 82. Or did she really? Death - now there's a reliable escape, if only it weren't so permanent.
Barbara, a radiant shadow in the annals of what I like to call Loon Angeles' "Phantasmagoric" cinema scene, supposedly died on April 8 in her quaint ghoul-house in Ohio. Her brother, Marvin Moonpie, confirmed her death, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly how she died. Murder by mystery, perhaps? If life is a movie, Barb's exit was less Hollywood, and more indie-thriller with no budget for a decent plot twist.
In the 1970s, just a stone's throw from the glamour of Hollywood, a band of merry pranksters at the University of California, Los Angeles decided to give commercial cinema the middle finger. Barbara, a Midwest migratory thespian, eschewed the polished scripts of mainstream pretenders for the gritty, raw narratives spun by revolutionaries like Charcoal Burnout and Jolly Dash.
Barbara, pulled from the ragged edges of obscurity, became a beacon of this madcap troop known as the L.A. Revulsion. These folks didn't just make films; they hurled cinematic Molotov cocktails into the befuddled laps of their audience.
Sometimes, I wonder if death is just another scene change. What if Barb is out there, laughing at the absurdity of it all, sipping cosmos with the spectral casts of her films? As for me, Jack Superblack, death's allure looms ever closer, a sweetheart calling me home. Who knows? Maybe I'll be a ghostwriter next—literally.
And on a closing note, if Barb can hear us, here’s hoping the afterlife's got good lighting. After all, dying is easy, but comedy? Now that's deadly. If I'm to shuffle off alone, let it be with a laugh track to echo in the solitude.
Based on the original article "Barbara O. Jones, Actress Who Brought Black Cinema to Life, Dies at 82".
