Our metric reference for today's
celebration of the new government
is the immortal exhortation from
Rock Hudson to Elizabeth Taylor,
in George Stevens' 1950s romance
on Texas, Giant. Embracing inter-
racial enlightenment during the
Eisenhower Administration, hotly
rejected in the rise of our New
Greatness (hilariously interpret-
ed only this week by David Brooks
as the rebirth of a frontier spir-
it), Stevens' screenplay finds a
newlywed couple disembarking from
their private rail car at their
imperial ranch in Texas, as the
élitist coastal bride graciously
accepts a welcoming bouquet from
a sub-captive Hispanic retainer
of her man-of-the-people husband.
A touch annoyed by this forbidden
interaction, his final demand to
get into the car for the drive to
the house, rings loud and clear -
 |
C'mon, Leslie, it's 50 miles to coffee!
Amidst all the buffoonery of the new government, yet coiled in plain sight in its horror of illegiti-macy, it is easy to over-look its childlike agony. A workmanlike apparatchik was certain to emerge in the maelstrom of hate mongering headliners staffing the regime. He is the former attorney general for fossilized Oklahoma, and he is destroying everything he possibly can, before the nation's day in Court, much less at the polls. 
In all the President's frenzy in
the stealing of myths, is said to
be some cover for his henchmen's
theft of resources. But his clock
is right, twice a day. They are
inextricable. Nice car, not his.
i Xavier Serrano
ii Luc Défont Saviard
iii Kenneth Blom
Les palmiers
2013
v George Stevens
director
Giant
Elizabeth Taylor
James Dean
1956
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