Call me bipolar, but I’m seeing both of these on the day each is released.
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Comments on this entry are closed.
Heck yeahYuss!!!!
Eastwood is a national treasure. Rowdy and The Man With No Name simply and seamlessly segue into the next cool iteration.
On that first film, you & me both!
Not so much the second one. I’ve never really gotten into Elton all that much, though I did see him on stage back in the ’70s and he put on a good show. My old aunt & grandmother, if they were still alive, would love him to death I’m sure, just like they did Liberace!
And no, they just thought he was a “fancy dresser,” that’s all; they were truly innocent, in the way that no one is today.
Both look to be very good, but first I’ll be at Gosnell. Next weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttwkr8MM9Rk
azlibertarian, I’ll probably see Gosnell long before I see the Eastwood movie, which is sure to be entertaining as hell.
In re Elton John and Liberace, my brutally abusive grandmother thought Liberace was just the shit. She raised my youngest cousin to be just like him, and told him that he was just adorable. I was just too male, apparently – despite being fatherless – and she just hated me.
I think I’ll pass on that one.
‘pea-cans’??? I love Clint but the word is pronounced ‘puh-cahns’ by those of use who have pecan trees
Call me North Polar, it’s been 7 or 9 years since I’ve been in a movie theater , the Eastwood flick is tempting but…
Disappointment John (1972): “I’m not the man they think I am.”
I don’t even know where a theater is around here, haven’t seen any and haven’t looked.
Last flick I saw in a theater was U571. Yeah, it’s been that long and don’t see any point in going there again.
A room not much bigger’n our living room, with a lower quality screen and sound, slammed with inconsiderate assholes unconcerned with even watching the film.
Oh yeah, ghetto grade, over priced food and drink, and the tickets themselves probably gang rape your wallet. How much are tickets these days, maybe $15? Pffft….who needs the aggravation cept aggravating people?
It’s not quite so bad, Ghost, although prices may be higher where you are. The food has improved, most places. There is even a chain called CMX that has made to order food–burgers, pizza, pasta dishes and so on–that is reasonably priced. They will deliver the pizza to your reclining seat. Many theaters don’t have any of the older seating left. You get a very well-padded electric recliner with foot rest and elbow room on both sides, and a cup holder for your beer, wine or mixed drink.
One of my jobs is to visit theaters on opening day and check the trailers for future shows. The studios pay for their trailers to be shown, so someone has to verify that they did. So I see a lot of trailers.
The real rape is the popcorn and soda. Some smaller chains have somewhat reasonable prices, but chains like AMC want $12-14 for a large soda and popcorn. Because of how the money works, the theater doesn’t make any money from ticket sales for the first couple of weeks. They make their money on the concessions.
AMC is now offering a deal. For $20/month, you get to watch up to three movies per week, including in the 3D and Dolby halls. You can pick and reserve your seats online before you go. If you have the time, that’s 12 to 14 movies a month, or about $1.33 per show. They even give you an upgrade on your popcorn and soda, and there’s a special bypass line for these folks.
There is an older renovated theater here that shows second run American and Bollywood movies. There are enough Indian IT workers to support it. You can get somosas at the concession stand.
Inneresting. Clint Eastwood movies continue to get harder edged; he’s an artist as a director, and a damn good actor.
Elton John was right down our alley in the mid Seventies. A rock & roll showman, for sure. Recall that he performed his music at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding.
Movies? Get outta here! The heyday of movies is surely in the past. We just live on the fumes of a bygone era, now. Good ones are few and far between. Neal Armstrong with no US flag? Gay cowboys? No. Stank. You.
You can tell, to some extent, where a person is from, by their pronunciation of “pecan”. I grew up saying pih-cahn. Heritage is southern Minnesota German. 2nd wife, from Charlotte, NC, made pea-can pie. Sister-in-law from Texas has some pee-kahn trees.
I don’t care how it’s pronounced, as long as there’s enough egg yolks and brown sugar in that pie filling.
I’m eager to see both of those movies.
Watched Rawhide reruns after we got a television so we could watch that first lunar landing. The bulk of Eastwood’s movies have had a strong theme of “redemption” that runs through them, The Mule looks like it will not disappoint.
My peers and I, all a little north of 60 now, knew that a fancy dresser like Reginald Dwight wasn’t a woman chaser. We didn’t care. The music was good.
“Watched Rawhide reruns…”
============
We did too, all of em. That was a couple years ago. Bought the full set of DVD’s.
Have 5 DVD players in the living room, and an amazon device for streaming.
One player has season 13 of Gunsmoke, another has Zane Grey theater, 3 is Tombstone Territory, 4 is Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1 hour shows from the early 60’s), I forget what’s in 5 but it also has a USB input with a thumb drive with old noir movies and season 7 of Alfred Hitchcock Presents from the late 50’s. Player 5 is a Panasonic universal that will play discs from all regions. We only watch TV at suppertime and rotate through the DVD’s. Cut that $80/mth cord about 5 years ago. Have put that 80 x 12 x 5 = $4800 to better use. Most network TV today, especially the rampant amount of commercials, is unwatchable by reasonable people. The little bit of exposure I’ve had with it indicates the networks have a priority of over exposure of negro’s. All lies all the time – today’s media.
$4800 will buy you a pretty good setup, these days. Back when I was doing some work in Best Buy, the 4K sets had just come out, and $4800 would have bought you a middlin’-big 4K. Now, they’re doorbuster specials on Black Friday.