WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
Gerard Van der Leun
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
IÂ CELEBRATEÂ myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
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Somebody’s been watching too many Russ Tamblyn movies.
Incredible and that was fun to watch. Youth… mine is gone. Feels like it sneaked away suddenly in the middle of the night. My surgeon advised that on guys like me in middle 50s, (or much earlier) tendons tend to tear versus stretch in extreme activities. I recently had my labrum anchored back down to my shoulder blade and a tendon stitched up after a grappling match gone wrong with a dood 20 pounds heavier and 20 years younger. Vanderleun advised that I dial things down a bit. This post surgery recovery and PT sucks like a two headed queer, so I will be heeding Vanderleun’s advice.
“sucks like a two headed queer”
lol
Kansas welcome to Oldsville. Your description is hilarious and apt. Keep the sense of humor.
I did only a bit of buildering in my 30s but the high mountains called. Rock climbing (not gym type but real stuff) makes you careful and requires static moves; not dynamic with jumps and 4 limbs free. But it is a thrill to rise above the concrete floor. I one time knocked on a guy’s window. At 3 stories up! he let me in and could not find anything to remark.
It’s weird stuff. A number of my buddies are names on plaques now. Fantastic athletes and I think other than the guys with NVA machine gun wounds and German shrapnel scars, these are the guys I have admired most in life. Outside of the arts, that is.
Holy shit, now it hurts just to put my shirt on! But for some reason this video gets me pumped. Thanks GVD.
Slick as hog snot on a watermelon.
What a delightful video! Pretty sure none of those guys are whacked on dopus.
“Had my labrum anchored back down to my shoulder blade.”
Day-um,Snakepit,you forced me to look up “labrum”. Fibrocartilage,articular joint,shoulder labrum SLAP tear. Heal quickly,prayers up.
Sux like a 2-headed queer would get you drawn & quartered elsewhere.
Blessings on thee,Mr V. Glad you’re feeling better.
@Snake
That last sentence is a killer! I blew coffee all over my lap.