The respite

. and when I thought
of singing of kings
and battles, the god
Apollo tweaked my ear 
and said to me, 'A 
shepherd should feed 
fat sheep and sing a 
slender song.'

    All of the songs Apollo sang alongside

    The listening river Eurotas who, blessed with the music,

    Commanded that his laurels learn them by heart,

    All these Silenus sang; the echoing valleys

    Echoed them up to the stars, till the Evening Star

    Said it was time for the flocks to come back in,

    Time to be counted, and time for him to set out

    Over a sky reluctant to yield the day.

Virgil

David Ferry

  translation

The Eclogues of Virgil

  Eclogue VI

  Tityrus

  i    fragment

  vi  complete

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999©

ii  Tim Schuhmacher

Saturday commute cxix: Persia without end

The building of Alexandria 
proceeded, and copied or mag-
nified forms from the perish-
ing peninsula overseas. Dino-
crates planned Greek temples
and market places, and they
were constructed not slavish-
ly but with intelligence, for
the Greek spirit still lived.

But it lived consciously, not

unconsciously as in the past.

It had a mission, and no mis-

sionary shall ever create.

And Alexander, the heroic

chaos of whose heart surged

with desire for all that

can and can not be, turned

away from his Hellenic town-

planning and his narrow lit-

tle antiquarian crusade, and

flung himself again, but in

a new spirit, against the

might of Persia.

He fought her as a lover now. 

He wanted not to convert but 

to harmonize, and conceived 

himself as the divine and im-

partial ruler beneath whom 

harmony shall proceed.

That way lies madness. Per-

sia fell. Then it was the

turn of India. Then the turn

of Rome would have come and

then he could have sailed

westward (such was his ex-

pressed intention) until he

conquered the Day. He was

never - despite the tuition

of Aristotle - a balanced

young man, and his old 

friends complained that in

this latter period he some-

times killed them.

                But to us, who cannot have the peril-

                ous honour of his acquaintance, he

                grows more lovable now than before.

                He has caught, by the unintellectual

                way, a glimpse of something great, 

                if dangerous.. He had tried to lead

                Greece, then he had tried to lead 

                mankind. He had succeeded in both.

  

                But was the universe also friendly,

                was it also in trouble, was it call-

                ing on him, on him, for his help and

                his love?

              

The artistic progress 

in the works of David

Hockney and Morgan For-

ster displays a natural 

resemblance in their 

gathering confidence 

to test their nemesis,

their resistant Persia.

The site offers no tri-

umph, except in their

residual refusal to be

drawn into conflict

with their art. Resis-

tance without end lays

a cornerstone of West-

ern art, and it follows,

of sanity as we know it.

Let us see how we may

thrive by this constraint.

E.M. Forster

Pharos and Pharillon

  The Return from Siwa

1923

Creative Arts Book Co., 1980©

David Hockney

Nude, Santa Monica

1973

Sur la terrasse

1971

Peter Schlesinger

1968

Michael Beck

Walter Hill

  director

The Warriors

1979

Andrés Nieto Porras

Sea, Iceland

undated

   

Resolved: to part with the post-card

I found myself glancing through
a catalogue I've had for many
years, of works in the Art In-
stitute [of Chicago, it may be
superfluous to add], searching
through their Rembrandts, which
hold such a welcoming position
in their collection. Out popped
a post-card addressed in my hand
to my father, then a widower in
La Jolla, who had grown up in
Chicago until his early teens,
going west to school and stay-
ing on. With my favorite pen,
I noticed, I'd begun by saying,
this museum is fantastic. I say,
I'd begun this way, no saluta-
tion, Dear .. I never completed
the note, I never shared the 
picture or the sentiment, which
plainly had been intended to be
given. That meaning, that act
were forever lost.

I know very little of res-
olutions; I know ambitions,
I know expectations. But I
have learned a little bit
about communications. What-
ever else they convey, of
minor, trifling, passing in-
terest, they impart a qual-
ity of the personality. It
is necessary to discover,
this is not trifling, and
to persist in the transmit-
tal despite everything else.

Last year, the Rijksmuseum

mounted a "once in a life-

time" exhibition of later

works by Rembrandt, assem-

bled with the co-operation

of the leading collections

of the world. It had a can-

did purpose - to present a

privilege beyond valuation,

to a brand new generation.

When I saw this photograph,

I confess I drew the most

sardonic and astonished con-

clusion; yes, it also struck

me as hilarious, for how the

genders spontaneously coagu-

late, seemingly molecularly.

But I do not question the

power of The Night Watch,

the canvas then undoubtedly

saturating the internet in

diligent flights of postal

surrogates. I see them hud-

dled in declaring what de-

lighted them, thinking what

they'd say, selecting their

recipients, hoping to show

what made one grateful. Not

failing to give it away. It

must be sent.

Chimes have rung at Windsor

Our sun's quaint custom,
of always setting upon one
outpost or another of the
English language, is some-
times a great convenience
to the timely mixing of a
dry martini, more or less
at will. It's from that
amusingly distributed ton-
gue that we now recite our
happy news, of the jury's
successful completion of
another tonsorial tourney,
selecting the Haircut of
the Year in a single, u-
nanimous ballot. First,
the runner-up ~ a player
of distinction in the
texts celebrated by the
champ. For our part, it
will make for a fine af-
ter dinner treat to re-
visit his best work in
film, of that very kind.

And now we learn with

great delight, that 2016

will see a 50th anniver-

sary screening in several

American cities, of that

infinitely rich tapestry

of Bolingbroke selfies,

Chimes at Midnight (1966).

The Haircut jurors plain-

ly reasoned, that if deso-

lation is the inevitable

backdrop for the winning

haircut, the bearer need

not be the one to wear it.

Time to go and play.

                 Now comes in the sweetest morsel

                 of the night, and we must hence

                 and leave it unpicked ..

William Shakespeare
King Henry IV
  Part II
II, iv, 364-365
1598
The Arden Shakespeare
A.R. Humphreys
  editor
Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1966©

River Phoenix

My Private Idaho

Gus van Sant

  director

1991

Jeanne Moreau

  Doll Tearsheet

Orson Welles

  Sir John Falstaff

Orson Welles

  director

  screenplay

  couture

  art direction

Chimes at Midnight

1966

Bridget Gellert Lyons

  editor

Rutgers Films in Print

  Chimes at Midnight

  Orson Welles, director

Rutgers University, 1988©

We still have time for entries

 
  The prize for Haircut
  of the Year is not a-
  warded every year; it
  is bestowed on a ton-
  sorial performance as
  the sole redeeming a-
  menity within a field
  of view. The drawback
  here was an incontro-
  vertibly well-planted
  urn. A bit more deso-
  lation, a little less
  botanical vitality, a
  new entry could sweep
  the field of all pre-
  tenders, by midnight.

   How wittily fu-

   nerary the urn,

   dripping acrid-

   ity to burn, as

   toxic a turn as

   a tear left in-

   terned, so pit-

   iable to spurn.

   Suspicion gathered for-
   cibly among the jurors,
   of the alien intruder's
   exploitation of desola-
   lation in self-inflict-
   ed melodrama of transit.
   Still, undeniable hair.
   
   

                      With brick and mortar

                      so passé in a virtual

                      shopping day, jurors

                      sensed a true hoo-ray

                      welling up in judging

                      play, and sought out

                      moral guidance: if de-

                      light found no subsid-

                      ence, might they call

                      it all a day by award-

                      it to hay?

Dorothy Wilding
Noel Coward
1930

High Noon

 We watch Frank 
 Miller's bunch
 out there, and
 the town's too
 willing to emp-
 ty the streets
 for their lit-
 tle Party. The
 story rides on
 a terror surge
 and the snarl-
 ings of intim-
 idation. Where
 is Katy Jurado?  


















Carl Foreman
  screenplay
High Noon
1952

Charles Simic
Sticking to our Guns
New York Review
  of Books
December 4, 2015©