Concessions

Over the past two days, whilst slowly fusing to my couch, I watched six Gregory Peck movies—To Kill a
Mockingbird; Cape Fear; Arabesque; Mirage;
Captain Newman, M.D.; and The World in His
Arms—which make up Universal’s The Gregory Peck Film
Collection, newly released on DVD ($59.98). Of course, being
exclusively Universal pictures, it’s hardly THE Gregory Peck film
collection (Roman Holiday? Eh?), but it is a Gregory Peck
film collection. It’s 677 minutes of Gregory Peck, to be exact (plus
bonus features).

And what did I learn? Well, first of all, Gregory Peck is
approximately the most likable human who’s ever lived. If
science is looking for some motivation to get off its ass and invent
time travel, isn’t
going-back-and-manufacturing-an-infinite-number-of-domesticated-Gregory-Peck-clones
reason enough? Honestly, scientists: Do I have to do everything myself?

But anyway, the most important thing about Gregory Peck, Fine Old
Gentleman, is that pair of squirmy, black hair-worms guarding
his eyeballs. Gregory Peck’s eyebrows. Peckbrows. The best.

Gregory Peck’s Peckbrows have played many roles over the years. In
their younger days, the brows were merely a garnish on the face of
an extremely handsome man. In To Kill a Mockingbird, they
are often obscured by Atticus Finch’s glasses (bullshit), and in
Cape Fear, they remain knitted in concern for the duration. In
Arabesque, Gregory Peck’s eyebrows do a dance and a double take
at the hotness of Sophia Loren. And gradually, as Peck gets older, the
brows grow longer and bushier and somehow blacker, until he’s like a
great horned owl (an owl that lots of women of a certain age would
still like to have sex with, if it were legal for a woman to have sex
with a predatory bird—slippery slope, ladies).

I didn’t realize it at first, but after my 12-hour Peckfest, Gregory
Peck’s eyebrows had sunk their tendrils deep into my brain. I found
myself dreaming about those two furry burritos. At 4:30 in the morning,
I woke up, rolled over to the computer that sometimes lives in my bed,
and (true story) e-mailed myself some thoughts that, at the time,
seemed important to remember: “Gregory Peck named his only two
children Gregory Peck’s Left Eyebrow and Gregory Peck’s Right Eyebrow.
This is absolutely true. The fact that he actually had five children,
all with normal human names, remains Gregory Peck’s greatest
lament.”

Dear Self: What. The fuck.

So is The Gregory Peck Collection worth purchasing? I guess.
Or not. Whatever. More importantly, though: Does one wiry
eyebrow-hair have enough DNA to clone a Peck? Because he must have shed
those things all over Hollywood. And hey, scientists—now, hear me
out—is it possible to adjust the size of a clone? Because
alls I’m saying is POCKET PECK. Think about it. Think about it.