Dudeism

That some kind of Eastern thing?

The Dude is responsible for a new religion, says the Chicago Sun-Times: Dudeism. Say what you want about its tenets, at least it's an ethos.

Dudeism.com is actually a fantastic site. The writer of the article, however, needs to revisit a little Dude 101. In her attempt to cleverly play off the film's dialogue, she writes: "Perhaps that's what makes the Dude so dang appealing." Perhaps she meant "so darned interesting."

She goes on to call the Dude "lazy but not lackadaisical." We know she owns a dictionary--her lede references one. (And how refreshing it is to see the dictionary lede outside of a high school yearbook.) According to my dictionary, lazy is the second definition of lackadaisical. Perhaps we should cut her a break, though. The first definition, after all, is listless.

Our Great Reporter in the Field couldn't quite get a comment from Dudeism.com's creator; I'll admit, us Lebowski site builders are hard to reach. She did manage to track down our good friend Will Russell of Lebowski Fest, who is the primary reason this site changed URLs from lebowskifestdc.com. More on this un-Dude in a later post. But, for now, some on this un-Dude.

[The Dude] keeps rolling with the punches. They pee on his rug and he goes and gets another rug.

That's what Russell has to say in defense of the Dude "abiding." I've always found it pretty darned interesting--I'm sorry, pretty dang appealing--that supposed Lebowski pundits (and, in this case, Russell as well) interpret the Dude's action during the movie as Dude-like. The beauty of the movie is that we understand what the Dude is typically like even though he's rarely like that during the film--particularly when he aggressively, and uncharacteristically, takes the second rug at Walter's prodding. Hence Duderino's revealing line, "My thinking about this case has become very uptight," late in the film.

And, according to my dictionary, uptight doesn't mean lazy. It doesn't even mean lackadaisical.