Friday, May 31, 2019

Suppose it were Friday clxxiii: And recycling went on





     Sometimes I think one can
     complain too much of the
     calm of an orderly way of
     life. 
           
           What became of that
     in the intricate calcula-
     tions of campaigners for
     our electoral affections?









Thursday, May 30, 2019

What's with all this talk of impeachment?





  Really, I just don't think I'm up
  for it at all. Such a whole lot of
  drama for the gratification of ap-
  petites to disapprove. What is the
  source of this failure to be satis-
  fied, and what is it about impeach-
  ment which promises a fulfillment?

  I've heard of the fog of war, but
  this strikes me as the war of fog:
  people groping heedlessly for mech-
  anisms they cannot control, because
  of frustration with a language they
  haven't mastered. What would Tacitus

















Robbie Davidson
  x Maxwell Poth






Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Further remark on Dean on screen






James Dean participated in three movies
in his career and died in that same year,
1955, at the age of 24. He was directed
by Nicholas Ray, Elia Kazan, and George 
Stevens. Probably nobody in the history
of American film has been showered with
more diverse support in so short a time;
and certainly nobody else so instantly
or enduringly outstripped so much fame,
becoming more universally recognized
than all three films put together. What
shirt today is not born, knowing, it
will never dress James Dean?

Now we have another historical study
of American cinema, to approach this
Alexandrian career with as much well-
sourced research as the years and the
author's visible diligence can allow,
and I'm happy to recommend it for com-
ing to grips with Dean's enigmatic as-
pects with obvious care, legitimate ar-
gument, and enlightening appreciation.

One never minds being informed about a
body of work from the craftsman's point
of view, the merit of which is better
to recognize its singularity. The crit-
ic is David Thomson, familiar for his
masterings of films for dvd. The style
is conversational, the temper is calm,
the manner is dignified, the thinking
is continuously impressive, and the
curtain of fame is congenially lifted.

We read of many artists engaged in the
suggestion of desire, and of how their
personalities may have been tested in
a variety of ways. What one learns of
Dean is that if all the fame which had
fed his fame were suddenly to be extin-
gushed, the screen would reignite it.
One never minds discovering what one's
always seen.














David Thomson
Knopf, 2019©











Monday, May 27, 2019

Decoration Day


  
  One wouldn't wish to make light
  of a seasonal holiday set aside
  for the last Monday in May, to
  express a debt to the fallen in
  the nation's military services.
  It is of course, beyond payment.

  The occasion began life under a
  title better fitted to the cost,
  Decoration Day. Stripped of all
  the cant of the occasion of any
  combat death, is the nation's
  deprivation of a young life bet-
  ter fitted for the illumination
  of our lives, than the enactment
  of politics' most sordid habit.























Sunday, May 26, 2019

Of heroes on their weekend


  Having a Coke with you




is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, 
  Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia
  in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better
  happier St Sebastian


partly because of my love for you, partly because of your
  love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around
  the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on
  before people and statuary

it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be
  anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when
  right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting
  back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through
  its spectacles . .





        















Frank O'Hara
Having a Coke
  with You
  [fragment]
1960
Donald Allen
  editor
The Collected Poems
  of Frank O'Hara