What is currently being asked from me is so big, so complex, it requires superhuman strength, extraordinary cognitive powers and x-ray vision, and then today [the universe gives me this]() : > 'In this vicious, spiteful world, we see a man who is neither vicious nor spiteful (...). He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete human being, an Everyman, and yet an extraordinary man.' And no this is not the I Ching and it is not Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies, nor is it [Mystic Medusa](https://johannesk.com/pluto), it is a description of the ‘Marlowe-ethos’, as Joseph McBride calls it in The Whole Durn Human Comedy: Life According to the Coen Brothers, which is  a reference to what Raymond Chandler said about Philip Marlowe. Are you still with me? And also that’s a translation back into English from Dutch, so it may not be accurate.  But the point is, this is Ray in the first Coen Brothers movie, Blood Simple (1984), forty years old almost exactly today — and also the Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998) apparently but I haven't seen that for a good twenty years. But I rewatched Blood Simple after a similar interval a while back and loved it. I came back to Blood Simple after seeing, Drive-Away Dolls (titled onscreen as Henry James' Drive-Away Dykes) (2024) solo directed by Ethan and co-written with and edited by his wife Tricia Cooke, in which the Marlowe ethos is embodied by a woman, Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). And it's not Blood Simple. But. Margaret Qualley. So that’s progress for you. Anyhoo, I have to be Ray. Or Marian. Or both.