The Sheila Variations

Happy birthday, Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was born on this day, in 1667. Here's a ton of biographical information if you are interested.

Primarily known for Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal he was also a poet of pretty uncommon gifts. I LOVE his stuff. He's also one of the most quotable of all writers. This man had acid running in his veins, acid of contempt for his fellow human beings.

But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

His hatred and contempt have echoed across the centuries and given us the primary examples of satire that all writers should study. I am sorry that satire is so tepid these days. I find most of it way too coy, and ... obvious. They WISH that what they were doing was satire of the highest order - but what they are really doing is just bitching and whining in a tiny airless corner. A dying art. Swift was merciless.

Swift said, in regards to satire:

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

hahahaha So true!

Swift embraced hate. It's hard to describe any other way - and yet he did not embrace corruption. Most people who fill their souls with hate (and I can think of many examples in our present-day political discourse as I am sure you can as well) completely corrupt their humanity. Their hatred for everyone else (and their inability to look in a goddamn mirror) leaves them with no humanity. Swift does not seem to have had that problem. He was just alert, that's all. He just saw the things going on around them, and wrote it all down. He pulled no punches.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

And also:

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

He called things as he saw them:

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Obviously such blunt truth was highly unwelcome in many circles - and still is today. Oh, how much the pious haters despise those who call them on their phoniness!! Again: it all comes back to this: Can you look in the mirror? Can you face yourself? Can you entertain the possibility that that which you hate is also inside of you? Oh ho ho no. Many people don't even know what the HELL you are talking about when you talk like that!

But then there is also this:

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.

The belief in the good in people. Not universally - oh, no. Swift was perfectly willing to see some people as just plain assholes with no redeeming qualities - and I'm pretty much with him on that. But occasionally - where you least expect it - a "vein of gold".

Many professional haters (and don't get me wrong - I think Jonathan Swift was a first-class straight-A hater - he said it about himself!) have ZERO senses of humor. Oh, they think they do, and I see them chortling on political talk shows, and yet - there's no wit. No humor. None.

But Swift? He used humor. He used it like a whip, yes, but also - well - there's something like this statement which makes me laugh out loud every time I read it:

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

Self-knowledge - a willingness to include himself in his own merciless searchlight:

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

And his POEMS. Let me post a couple of them. They're marvelous. Funny, biting, mean ... and yet sometimes so heartfelt (the ones to Stella - the woman he loved all his life - comes to mind) that they bring tears to my eyes.

A Satirical Elegy: On the Death of a Late Famous General

His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the news-papers we're told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumber'd long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy'd.
Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing's a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

I love the line: "How very mean a thing's a Duke". It just says it all.

And here is my favorite of the "Stella poems":

Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727


This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days:
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.

Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain,
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard
That virtue, styl'd its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should, acting, die, nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind;
Which by remembrance will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life's declining part.

Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preserving what it first creates.
Your gen'rous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glitt'ring dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimæras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends,
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

O then, whatever Heav'n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suff'rings share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.

"Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago?" God ... that just kills me. Yes, Swift ... yes, it does.

And this one - hahahaha -

Oysters

Charming oysters I cry:
My masters, come buy,
So plump and so fresh,
So sweet is their flesh,
No Colchester oyster
Is sweeter and moister:
Your stomach they settle,
And rouse up your mettle:
They'll make you a dad
Of a lass or a lad;
And madam your wife
They'll please to the life;
Be she barren, be she old,
Be she slut, or be she scold,
Eat my oysters, and lie near her,
She'll be fruitful, never fear her.

His rhythm is perfection.

Michael Schmidt's book Lives of the Poets has a chapter devoted to Jonathan Swift, John Gay, and Alexander Pope - it's called "Three Friends". Schmidt's book is a must-read for poetry lovers - he's not a critic first of all. He's an editor and a book publisher. He's a FAN of poetry. He writes like a fan writes - and yet his knowledge is encyclopedic. I LOVE the book.

Here is some of what he has to say about Jonathan Swift:

His vexed relations with women, especially "Stella" and "Vanessa", and his disgust with physical functions, have given much latitude to Freudian interpretations. Disgust informs much of the prose and verse, but so does a real interest in common people, their language, actions and concerns. The verse opens on this area of his genius, and on his darker musings. It possesses the satiric virtues of the prose with an additional element: the "I" speaks, speaks as itself, with an uncompromised acerbity that few poets have masterd. When he died in 1745, Ireland and England were in his debt. The topicality that limits the appeal of some of his prose is itself the appeal of the verse: it catches inflections and remembers small actions now lost -- the voices of gardeners, street vendors, laborers ... the tone of a cryptic man of conscience speaking of his world, his bitter, life, his wary loves.

Jonathan Swift described style, in writing, as "proper words in proper places". I think he pretty much mastered that - in his prose, certainly, but also in his poems. There isn't an extra word there - there is no FAT in his language - he has pared everything down to its essentials. The verses come to us as though they were born complete - and perfect.

More from Schmidt - and this, I believe, is a brilliant point:

In the more ambitious pieces Swift challenges the reader ... There is a unique irony at work, not normative, like Dryden's, but radical: thematic rather than stylistic. This is why his poems, even the most topical, retain force today. "I take it to be part of the honesty of poets," he wrote, "that they cannot write well except they think the subject deserves it." The subjects he chose he approached as if for the first time, as if we stepped from the chill, clear world of reason into a world of men.

More (and Schmidt contradicts me here - back when I said Swift was "quotable" - but I see his point definitely - most of the quotes I excerpted above were from his prose works - His poems are pretty much complete - and need to be read straight through - they are difficult to excerpt. They depend on momentum.):

Swift is hard to recommend as a poet because he is hard to quote out of context. There are few purple passages, detachable maxims; the poetry is drawn evenly through the poem in ways that out-of-context quotation violates. The epitaphs, the spoofs, the eclogues, the anecdotes spoken by various voices, the ironic love poems, the first-person poems, will not be broken up into tags like the rich couplet bric-a-brac of Pope. In Swift we come upon a writer who might have preferred to be called versifier rather than poet. There is a difference in kind in his work from that of his predecessors; and he is not "polite" enough to have beguiled his contemporaries into imitation. He stands alone, he doesn't sing, he never ingratiates himself. He speaks, and he understands how the world wags.

And on that note, I will close this ginormous post - but I will let William Butler Yeats have the last word on this absolutely goosebump-inducing writer:

Swift's Epitaph
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.

Yup. Imitate him if you dare.

Red's Bookshelf: Excerpt from "Vieux Carré"

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is a full-length play (yes, another full-length!!) called Vieux Carré. This one was produced in 1978 - and it's very much like the film Moulin Rouge - same basic plot and theme.

A young idealistic writer comes to New Orleans to write. He gets a room in a rooming house - a famous one that's on the tourist track - Vieux Carré - on Toulouse Street. And during his stay there - he encounters all kinds of degenerates, and people on the fringe of society - and he writes it all down - but at the same time, being side by side with such sadness, loneliness, degeneracy - changes him forever. He loses his idealism forever.

Some great characters. There's Nightingale - the gay painter - who is dying of tuberculosis and refuses to admit that it is anything more than a cold. He is a lecherous old queen, always sneaking into other people's rooms (men's rooms) and trying to feel people up. He believes that he is a great painter, that his major work is left undone - but in the meantime, he sits in various gay coffee houses and bars in the cities and does watercolors of the clientele. This is his way of picking people up. He's a sad and kind of disgusting character.

There's a couple: Jane and Tye. Tye is a barker at a stripshow - a gorgeous young hunk of man, but completely corrupt in his soul. He uses heroin. Jane was a fashion designer, and she comes from "the North" (meaning "the Northeast") - she used to be respectable - but she met Tye - and basically no one has ever touched her the way Tye touches her - and so, with his help, she sinks down into the gutter. Tye is not faithful. Of course not. But there is something in the sex they have together that completely entraps Jane, time and time again, no matter how many times she tries to get away.

There's the loony landlady Mrs. Wire (played by Sylvia Miles in the original production). She knows that her rooming house is famous, a historical landmark, and she relentlessly harasses all of the loser tenants - she monitors their comings and goings, she eavesdrops ... she thinks they're a bunch of losers. She's a lunatic - great character.

There are two little spinster ladies who live together in the rooming house - they have no money - they are behind in their rent - and they scrounge through garbage cans during the daytime for food. They huddle together in spinsterish fright, they are like one person.

There's Sky - a beautiful young drifter - who takes on symbolic meaning to all the people in the house. He's a clarinet player. He's planning a trip "West". He has no money, just a car ... he kind of befriends The Writer and invites him to come along on the trip with him.

The Writer, within 4 months of staying at Vieux Carré, starts to find it impossible to even contemplate leaving. The sadness and desperation all around him has seeped into him. He is as trapped as they are.

Occasionally, the Writer will turn out to the audience and narrate. He is our guide through Vieux Carré.

I'll excerpt from one of the scenes between The Writer and Nightingale, the lecherous dying gay painter.

From Vieux Carré, by Tennessee Williams

[There is a spotlight on the writer, stage front, as narrator]

WRITER. That Sunday I served my last meal for a quarter in the Qyarter, then I returned to the attic. From Nightingale's cage there was silence so complete I thought, "He's dead." Then he cried out softly --

NIGHTINGALE. Christ, how long do I have to go on like this?

WRITER. Then, for the first time, I returned his visits. [He makes the gesture of knocking at Nightingale's door] -- Mr. Rossignol ... [There is a sound of staggering and wheezing. Nightingale opens the door; the writer catches him as he nearly falls and assists him back to his cot] -- You shouldn't try to dress.

NIGHTINGALE. Got to -- escape! She wants to commit me to a charnal house on false charges ...

WRITER. It's raining out.

NIGHTINGALE. A Rossignol will not be hauled away to a charity hospital.

WRITER. Let me call a private doctor. He wouldn't allow them to move you in your -- condition ...

NIGHTINGALE. My faith's in Christ -- not doctors.

WRITER. Lie down.

NIGHTINGALE. Can't breathe lying -- down ....

WRITER. I've brought you this pillow. I'll put it back of your head. [He places the pillow gently in back of Nightingale] Two pillows help you breathe.

NIGHTINGALE. [leaning weakly back] Ah -- thanks -- better ... Sit down.

[A dim light comes up on the studio area as Tye, sitting on the table, lights a joint]

WRITER. There's nowhere to sit.

NIGHTINGALE. You mean nowhere not contaminated? [The writer sits.] -- God's got to give me time for serious work! Even God has moral obligations, don't He? -- Well, don't He?

WRITER. I think that morals are a human invention that He ignores as successfully as we do.

NIGHTINGALE. Christ, that's evil, that is infidel talk. [He crosses himself] I'm a Cath'lic believer. A priest wouldl say that you have fallen from Grace, boy.

WRITER. What's that you're holding?

NIGHTINGALE. Articles left me by my sainted mother. Her tortoise-shell comb with a mother-of-pearl handle and her silver framed mirror. [He sits up with difficulty and starts combing his hair before the mirror as if preparing for a social appearance] Precious heirlooms, been in the Rossignol family three generations. I look pale from confinement with asthma. Bottom of box is -- toiletries, cosmetics -- please!

WRITER. You're planning to make a public appearance, intending to go on the streets with this -- advanced case of asthma?

NIGHTINGALE. Would you kindly hand me my Max Factor, my makeup kit?

WRITER. I have a friend who wears cosmetics at night -- they dissolve in the rain.

NIGHTINGALE. If necessary, I'll go into Sanctuary! [The writer utters a startled, helpless laugh; he shakes with it and leans against the stippled wall] Joke, is it, is it a joke? Foxes have holes, but the Son of Man hath nowhere to hide His head!

WRITER. Don't you know you're delirious with fever?

NIGHTINGALE. You used to be kind -- gentle. In less than four months you've turned your back on that side of your nature, turned rock-hard as the world.

WRITER. I had to survive in the world. Now where's your pills for sleep, you need to rest.

NIGHTINGALE. On the chair by the bed.

[Pause]

WRITER. Maybe this time you ought to take more than one.

NIGHTINGALE. Why, you're suggesting suicide to me which is a cardinal sin, would put me in unhallowed ground in -- potter's field. I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost ... you've turned into a killer?

WRITER. [compulsively, with difficulty] Stop calling it asthma -- the flu, a bad cold. Face the facts, deal wtih them. [He opens the pillbox] Press tab to open, push down, unscrew the top. Here it is where you can reach it.

NIGHTINGALE. -- Boy with soft skin and stone heart ...

[Pause. The writer blows the candle out and takes Nightingale's hand]

WRITER. Hear the rain, let the rain talk to you, I can't.

NIGHTINGALE. Light the candle.

WRITER. The candle's not necessary. You've got an alcove, too, with a window and bench. Keep your eyes on it, she might come in here before you fall asleep. [A strain of music is heard. The angel enters from her dark passage and seats herself, just visible faintly, on Nightingale's alcove bench] Do you see her in the alcove?

NIGHTINGALE. Who?

WRITER. Do you feel a comforting presence?

NIGHTINGALE. None.

WRITER. Remember my mother's mother? Grand?

NIGHTINGALE. I don't receive apparitions. They're only seen by the mad.

[The writer returns to his cubicle and continues as narrator]

WRITER. In my own cubicle, I wasn't sure if Grand had entered with me or not. I couldn't distinguish her from a -- diffusion of light through the low running clouds. I thought I saw her, but her image was much fainter than it had ever been before, and I suspected that it would fade more and more as the storm of my father's blood obliterated the tenderness of Grand's. I began to pack my belongings. I was about to make a panicky departure to nowhere I could imagine ... The West Coast? With Sky?

[He is throwing things into a cardboard suitcase]

The last scene of "Notorious"

... and why Cary Grant is not just a great movie star, but a great actor.

In the last scene of Notorious, Ingrid Bergman lies in bed, trapped in the house of her Nazi husband. She is being slowly poisoned by Nazi-man (Claude Rains) and by his terrifying evil Fraulein mother. Bergman lies in bed, coming in and out of consciousness due to the poison, the sleeping pills - Cary Grant has come to rescue her - finds her in this state - and he tries to keep her awake, he dresses her so that they can leave that terrible mansion - and he also, in his tortured way declares his love for her.

He has been cruel, distant, misogynistic, etc., throughout the rest of the film - but the genius of it is that Cary Grant (and Hitchcock, of course) lets us in on the secret: Devlin (the character) is actually not a cruel or distant man at all - he is only cruel and distant because underneath all of that, he is vulnerable, too vulnerable, and he needs her too much. Cary Grant's performance is a show-and-tell masterpiece. He shows us everything, but he tells us NOTHING. WE can see the truth, but Devlin can't. WE can look at him and see the vulnerability, but Devlin thinks he's invulnerable, and that he can't be hurt.

What the character DOES in the film is obvious: he throws her to the wolves, he hates her for her whorish past, he despises her on some level - mainly because of his own insecurities - he is insecure about her sexual experience, and punishes her emotionally for it - he refuses to believe that she can change her nympho-drunk ways. But clues are dropped, along the way, that this guy is tormented about her, and actually loves her. The clues are along the lines of "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it ..." Devlin is unaware of the clues he is leaving behind. He thinks he has covered his tracks (emotionally, I mean.) But it's all there: He treats her like a whore, except when she is out of his presence, and then he gets very very touchy about any slights on her honor, he gets very protective of her. He defends her character to his fellow secret agents ("I don't think she's that kind of woman!"), and yet - refuses to defend her when she begs him to, in person. ("Did you tell them I'm not the kind of girl for this sort of work??")

In the last scene, he helps her to sit up, her head is flopping back. The lighting is spectacular: the pillow behind her head is blazing white, and her face is completely in the glow of the light. But he - he is a dark silhouette, he remains in the shadow. The only time he is fully lit in the final scene of this film is when the 2 of them emerge from the bedroom, and begin the descent down the stairway. And if you see the film again: LOOK at how different his face is when he steps out into the brightness with her.

Here it is:

He looks, in that last fully-lit section, during the descent down the staircase - he looks, for the first time, like a complete man - like he has joined the land of the living. He looks ... alive. Alert. With no barrier between himself and his own desires. He will get her down the stairs. He will save her. He is thankful that he did not wait too long. He will save her, even if it means losing his own life. All of that is in that face when he emerges from the bedroom with her in his arms. Amazing acting job. The transformation. For the rest of the film, he's uptight, guarded, his eyes are cynical, he never smiles (except when he's pretending, at the party). But somehow, Cary Grant creates this character without completely alienating us in the audience. Like: he's a bastard to her! He's cruel! And Notorious is obviously on "her" side - the film sympathizes with Ingrid Bergman - and yet - he is not villainized. Hitchcock knew we would come to the film with preconceived notions about Cary Grant (from movies like Bringing up Baby and Holiday - and he set about to deliberately mess with our expectations. Devlin is the darkest Cary Grant has ever been. This is a guy who is starving for love, and the only reason he resists it is because he needs it too much. The brilliance, of course, of all of this - is that that is only implied, never ever said.

So I guess you could say that this is my interpretation of the character of Devlin.

Back to the last scene:

He sits with her on the bed, her face ablaze in the light, and he is a shadow-man, a black-cut-out silhouette. He holds her - she says, "Why have you come ..." He whispers, "I had to see you one more time ... so I could tell you I love you ..."

He has never said he loved her, and earlier on in the film, she makes reference to the fact that their love affair is very interesting, because he doesn't love her. He tries to weasle out of it, saying, "Actions speak louder than words..."

So the "I love you" in this last scene is not like other "I love yous" in films. There's no swelling music, no climactic moment - there's not a feeling that this "I love you" is a victory. It's more hard-won, more tragic. It's an "I love you" between two adults who have been damaged and chastened by life's hard lessons. Man. I so relate to that. This is a grown-up movie.

Back to the last scene:

She is, again, falling in and out of consciousness - but when she hears those words - when she hears him whisper, "I love you" - there are tears in her eyes (Bergman is absolutely spectacular in this film, especially in the last scene) - she says, "You love me? Why didn't you say so before?"

He holds onto her, says into the side of her cheek, "I was a fat-headed guy ... full of pain."

The entire scene is done in surreptitious whispers, which adds to the insecure feeling of it, the secretive-ness, the neuroses - this isn't a normal love scene. She's in the light, he's in the dark - These two people are all fucked up, basically. I don't feel hopeful about their future together, really - even though they drive away in the same car. Whatever happened, they'd have a difficult path. Being grown-up and being in love is tough.

If you want to know why Cary Grant is not just a great movie star, but a great actor - see what he does with that "fat-headed guy" line. It's really more that he does nothing, that's why it's so incredible - he just says it - simply - with no self-pity, no self-importance, no ego - he just says it ... but the eyes ... the eyes ...

You can feel it. "Fat-headed guy full of pain".

Richard Schickel writes about Cary Grant as Devlin:

As Devlin the counterspy Grant is cool, brusque, competent -- with an almost sadistic edge of cruelty about him. At the start it is clear that his assignment is distasteful to him -- recruiting and running an amateur, and a woman at that. And what a woman she is. Ingrid Bergman's Alicia is not only the personally loyal, if politically disapproving, daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, she is also a nymphomaniac and an incipient alcoholic, unstable to the point of explosiveness. And emotionally needy, pathetically so. "Why won't you believe in me, Devlin -- just a little bit," she begs at one point. And our shock at seeing Bergman violate her previously pristine image, degrading herself in her need is, like Grant's charmless manipulativeness, one of the things that makes this movie so superbly unbalancing. [Ed: I love that. A perfect description. "Superbly unbalancing".] She is, in [Pauline] Kael's terms the pursuer, he the pursued, but in the movie's own terms that is less significant than the neurotic force-field it wants to set up between them.

In effect, Devlin is forced to become her lover in order to calm her down enough to do her job, which is to insinuate herself into the home and circle (in Rio de Janeiro) of Alexander Sebastian, who is played by Claude Rains, in one of that actor's most delicious roles, as the only master spy in the history of the genre who is hag-ridden by his mother (yet another piece of pathology to reckon with)...

What Devlin does not count on is that he will fall genuinely in love with Alicia. Or that Sebastian will ask her to marry him. And that there is no way out of the match if she is to complete her mission.

What neither she nor the audience has counted on is Devlin's neurosis, which now comes to the fore.

He thinks she accepts the situation too easily; her attitude fits all too well with what he knows of her earlier promiscuity; and with all the fears and suspicions of women in general which she had almost made him forget.

He turns petulant as a jilted schoolboy, reaching levels of mean-spiritedness that from any leaading man would startle an audience, but which from Cary Grant are almost devastating. Hitchcock and Hecht (the writer) have now stripped him bare of his protective image as they previously did Bergman.

The resolution of Notorious requires not just the restoration of moral order, but the rebalancing of psychological equilibrium as well. And what dark intensity this brings to the normally routine process of sorting out a spy drama's strands. One feels that if one of the Brontes had attempted an espionage story it would have turned out something like this.

With Notorious we come closer to the heart of Grant's darkness -- as close as he would allow us to come. There were two decades left to his career, but only once -- and then again for Hitchcock -- would he risk anything like this exposure. Something assuredly was lost by the reticence. And yet one can scarecely blame him. Self-revelation is a terrible trial for anyone; it is especially so for an acotr, whose instrument is his person; most of all for an actor like Grant, who so carefully and deliberately created a screen character that was as much a fantasy to him as it was to his audience, in which he could comfortably hide himself, or whatever of himself -- that is to say, the Archie Leach who had been -- that still existed.

-- Cool trivia about that last descent down the staircase: The staircase was not long enough for Hitchcock. He wanted the staircase to feel, literally, endless for that scene - to build the tension. But if they just slowly descended the staircase - they still reached the bottom with a couple of lines left over to say - this was not good enough for Hitchcock. So here was his solution: as they descended - if you notice the background behind Rains' head in the shots - Hitchcock had them go down the same stretch of stairway 2 or 3 times - so that it would FEEL longer. It's seamless in the film - unless you're looking at the blurry background you would never notice that for the first part of the scene they are not actually going anywhere. A beautiful example of how inventive Hitchcock was, how much he was able to create an illusion.

Movie quote

"I have two ex-wives, a mother and several bartenders depending on me."

Half-blood prince snapshots

SPOILERS BELOW.

I REALIZE THAT I AM THE LAST PERSON ON THE PLANET TO READ THE LATEST HARRY POTTER - BUT JUST IN CASE THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO HAS NOT READ IT - STOP NOW!!

I saw so many posts when the book first came out that announced "SPOILERS BELOW" - and so I avoided those posts - and I am forever grateful that the bloggers in question gave me a huge heads up.

So again:

SPOILERS BELOW.

-- Dumbledore. Wow. I did not see that coming. Well - not until they went into that horrible cave. Then I started thinking: "oh boy ... something's going to happen here ..."

-- Horrible. That awful battle at the end. I kept thinking: "If Dumbledore is dead ... then ANYone can die!" (Sorry, Cedric - I already recovered from the shock of your death.) I thought Hermione was going to die. I don't know why. I just got it into my head that she was going to die. And poor Bill. Being bitten by a werewolf is certain to impact him in future years.

-- But the one scene in the hospital when Fleur suddenly says, "Of course I will love him even with his wounds .." and suddenly she and Mrs. Weasley are crying and hugging was PERFECT. That's just how families actually work, and it was a very touching moment.

-- I understood the whole horcrux thing only while I was reading that chapter. I mean, I get it - but I had to keep reading to keep getting it, and ... it required momentum for me to keep understanding what they were trying to do and what it all meant Bits of Voldemort's soul split off and hidden in objects. Okay. Got it.

-- The entire romantic sub-plot was wonderful, I thought. It stretched out throughout the book - but never overwhelmed the plot. It kept my interest. It didn't become sappy or tiresome. I loved how Hermione was obviously trying to make Ron jealous by dating only the people that would drive Ron NUTS. Smart girl. And Ron basically practicing his "snogging" skills on Lavendar - who is SUCH a type - didn't we all know a girl like that in high school? Hell, I know women like her now. Women who can't WAIT to have a man, so that she can then clip his wings, and domesticate the hell out of him. I honestly do not understand women like that - I never have - but they exist - some of them are my good friends, and whatever - a lot of men must love that kind of shite, because women like that are ALWAYS in relationships whereas I am not. Lavendar wants to "have" Ron so that he will be trapped. I thought it was hysterical how Ron ended up hiding whenever he saw her coming. And Harry with his unrequited love for Ginny - and how she suddenly ran at him in the common room with her face "blazing" and suddenly he found himself kissing her. The moment he had been waiting for. I liked how it all played out. It was subtle - and yet it was treated with the right amount of importance. Romance is really important to people who are 16 years old ... and the book reflects that. I mean, romance is important to adults too - but that FIRST romance you never forget! ("The first cut is the deepest" and all that.)

-- Snape. I cannot figure him out. WHY did Dumbledore trust him? I am still not sure I got an answer to that.

-- When Harry comes upon the pale Draco crying in the boy's bathroom - I suddenly felt this rush of compassion and pity for Draco - while normally I just think he's an evil little putz. Like: has Draco been racing along on a little treadmill, being USED by Voldemort or Snape? Does he want to get out of it but CAN'T? Or does Draco just want to revenge his now imprisoned father (which would make sense ...) I think it would be pretty cool if, for whatever reason, Harry and Draco ended up joining forces. Now THAT would be unexpected.

-- The ending blew me away. Harry, although he has one year left, has seen too much, experienced too much, and he has outgrown Hogwarts. It's over. It is now time for him to go out and slay the dragon on his own. His protection (Sirius, Dumbledore) is now gone. He must fight. He can't sit in a classroom learning about potions. He needs to take action.

-- And the book ends on a melancholy nostalgic note. Beautiful last sentence. A perfect last sentence, I thought. Knowing that innocence is already dead, knowing that he can no longer just sit around enjoying simple pleasures while Voldemort is still out there ... he takes one last moment to enjoy his friendships, his girlfriend ... He knows it will be the last time.

I am in love with these books and I already can't wait for the next one.

How Patrick Hughes ruined Thanksgiving

Too much that is funny here to even discuss.

One quote:

The food was traditional Thanskgiving fare, nobody set anything on fire or challenged anyone to a headbutting contest, and we all got properly and decently drunk on many many many beers and the occasional glass of wine. Despite a pledge to avoid this sort of thing and take the high road, we spent the bulk of the evening swapping stories about Cousin Barry, eventually retiring to our separate rooms to barricade the doors lest he show up there in the middle of the night with eyes full of murderous intent and a plate full of lasagna.

I enjoy how all the cousins have their own hyperlinks. hahaha Everyone in the family has their own story.

I also enjoy:

Getting up early to fish is all-American and manly and helps keep the prostate clean of all that terrible, sissy communism going around.

And his father's "one concession to gay pride" - with the accompanying photo - made me laugh out loud.

Please read the whole thing.

Happy birthday, Louisa May Alcott

Truth be told, I have only read Little Women. But that, frankly, was enough for me. To me, it is a perfect book - a book I go back to again and again and again - always seeing something new in it, always finding new levels. The characters seem to grow up with me. When I first read it, when I was 10 years old, I was ALL ABOUT JO. And my love affair with Jo continues to this day. She is one of my favorite female characters ever written (it's a tie between Jo March and Harriet the Spy). Jo LIVES. No one can convince me that she is just a fictional character. Nope. You cannot do it.

But as I have grown up, and as I have continuously gone back to the book - the other sisters have come to the foreground - I see myself in all of them. Parts of me are like Amy, parts of me are like Meg, and I would like to think that parts of me are like Beth. But honestly: Jo is the one. Jo is the one I most relate to. She's the artist. The tomboy. The independent wild spirit. The one who is afraid to make the wrong choice. The one who sticks to her guns.

I still am not really reconciled to the fact that she and Laurie did not end up together - HOWEVER, I can see Jo's point. They were like brother and sister. But ... but ... but ... couldn't that have segued into a love thing? The intimacy they have together, the comfort?

When I was a kid, I HATED the professor. With his stupid German accent, and his goofy poetry as he wooed Jo. I resented the fact that he wasn't Laurie. I loved Laurie.

Now I know that Louisa May Alcott was forced by her publishers to marry Jo off. She wanted her to stay single. And if you really think about it, THAT would be much more logical - it makes much more sense that Jo, even with all her passion, and her ability to understand men (in a way that Meg, the one with all the love affairs, doesn't) - would choose to spend her life alone. She would marry her writing. In that day and age, those were the choices. It was the choice Louisa May Alcott herself made. She could not submit to the demands of wifehood and motherhood - it would infringe on her writing. She knew it, even when she was 15 years old, and wrote in her journal: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

Alcott's background is very interesting. She grew up in Concord, one of 4 girls, and her father was buddies with Emerson, and part of the Transcendentalist movement. Her father was a teacher, and at the time, his views on teaching were very controversial: He actually believed that students should enjoy learning. Heaven forbid! He thought that students should be actively involved in their own education, and not just sit back and be passive little drones. Louisa May Alcott had a passionate girlish love of Emerson - a crush, if you will. His intellect, his library that she was allowed to use, whatever ... She adored him.

In 1862, Alcott (as always, determined to make a living - and to contribute financially to her family) traveled to Washington DC as a Civil War nurse. By this point, Alcott had already started getting stuff published - poems, short stories in the Gothic melodramatic vein ... She actually preferred Gothic melodramas to the kinds of books that later would make her name. She despised Little Women and found the writing of it extremely tedious. But anyway, her experience as a nurse in the Civil War prompted her to publish a book called Hospital Sketches. At that point, her publisher asked her if she would write a book "for girls". Never one to back off from a challenge, Louisa May Alcott sat down and wrote Little Women in two months. She had grown up with 3 sisters - and she put her entire childhood and life into that book, even as she despised doing it, and didn't think the book would amount to much.

Little Women was published in 1868 and was an immediate rip-roaring success. The publisher, within only a couple of weeks of its publication, begged Alcott to get to work on a sequel. So Alcott did. Another smash success. Louisa May Alcott had become a star.

Every book she wrote after that was eagerly awaited for by a breathless loving public. Success had, indeed, come - her childish ambitions to be 'rich and famous' came to fruition tenfold ... but 'happy'? Was she happy? Sorry, Louisa, but does it matter??

She never married. She ended up taking care of her sister May's daughter - after May died from complications in childbirth. Being a surrogate mother to this young girl was one of the most fulfilling experiences of Alcott's life. She kept writing, kept publishing ... although she began to get more and more ill from mercury poisoning she had received years earlier during the Civil War (she had, like many other Civil War nurses, contracted typhoid fever - and at the time, the proscribed cure was something called "calomel" - a drug laden with mercury).

Near the end of her life, Alcott became active in the suffragette movement, canvassing door to door to try to convince women to demand the vote. In 1879, Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord - for the school committee election. Of such small steps ultimate victory was made.

Her beloved father passed away on March 4, 1888. Louisa May Alcott died two days later.

An extraordinary woman.

She didn't care for the book that made her name ... and probably wished that her legacy was different ... but that's okay. It is not for the artist to decide what the audience will react to, what the reader will respond to. She created something with Little Women that transcends the ages, that pierces through the centuries. It is a classic book. And perhaps it's fitting, in a way, that she wrote it for hire, pretty much - it was not her idea, and yet - look at what she was able to create. Look at what she was able to bring out!!

Jo March is immortal.

When I was 16 years old, one of the assignments we had in our Drama class was to do a one-person show - maybe 15, 20 minutes long - based on either a real person from history, or a fictional character - and we had to come into the class as that character, and do a monologue - based on our research - and then take questions. What a marvelous assignment. Marvelous. I still remember my core group of friends and their projects: Beth came in as Mae West. She was incredible. She had on a blowsy blonde wig, and wore a tight sparkley dress - and I still remember the shock when Beth started telling us all about birth control options - because Mae West was an early champion of birth control for women. It was awesome. Beth was fearless. Betsy did Paddington Bear (and I still remember how one of the questions for Betsy was: "Why don't you eat some of your marmalade?" and Betsy - who despises marmalade - had to dip her hand into the jar, take out a big scoop of it, and eat it - pretending she liked it. Now that's dedication to the acting craft!). Michele did Marilyn Monroe. Unbelievable. Michele was an amazing actress - I always wish she had kept up with it. She got the sadness beneath the blonde glamour of Marilyn. Beautiful.

And I did Louisa May Alcott.

One of my first forays into the one-person show format ... I did hours and hours and hours of research for a mere 20 minute piece - because I had no idea what questions people would ask, and I had to be ready for anything!

It was great, because I had known nothing about her before that. All I knew was that she was the author who created Jo March!! We also had visited her house in Concord as a family. Orchard House:

Once I learned all this stuff about her, my admiration for her just grew. I also loved that our birthdays were almost the same. She was a Sagittarius too.

Little Women. One of the all-time great books.

“A happy Thetan is a clear Thetan.”

Look out. The infiltration has begun.

The Books: "Something Unspoken" (Tennessee Williams)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is a one-act called Something Unspoken.

Another example of Williams' genius. Any of you out there who are Williams fans: I highly recommend you checking out this one-act if you haven't already. It's in the collection 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. Again: the amount of informaiton that he is able to pack into a one-act - without any of it seeming forced or artificial - is truly extraordinary. These plays are slices of life. Entire worlds are suggested in their meagre pages.

Here's the plot: Miss Cornelia Scott is a wealthy Southern spinster in her 60s. She is a grande dame. She dresses elaborately, does her hair up in pompadours, and lives her life with a lot of pomp and circumstance. The amazing thing that Williams does with her character, though, is ... by the end of the play, he has completely shown us what is going on beneath her facade - we completely see the REAL Miss Cornelia Scott - even though she would never be in charge of letting us see her so intimately. Her defenses are too strong for that - but no matter: Williams lets us see inside anyway. She is so lonely it aches. She is so eager for approval that she loses sleep at night. She is so afraid of rejection that she can barely even think about it. But nobody would ever guess that Miss Cornelia Scott was so vulnerable.

She has a secretary - a woman in her 40s - who has been with her for 15 years. Her name is Grace. They have a complex codependent relationship. There is tension between them - something unacknowledged (ahem - notice the title of the play) - we are not sure WHAT are the guts of this relationship but we know something is there.

Miss Cornelia Scott is waiting on tenterhooks (uhm - have I ever used that phrase before? What does it mean??) to hear about the elections of the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. She has been a member for years. She wants to be Regent. She has held every other office - but she wants to be Regent. The only problem is: her fear of rejection is so huge that she cannot submit to the indignities of campaigning - and unless it is a unanimous vote - unless everyone says, as one, "WE MUST HAVE CORNELIA SCOTT AS OUR LEADER" then she feels she must resign from the organization. Williams, in his genius way, lets us see that what is really going on here is that Cornelia Scott has no one in her life who loves her. Everyone fears her, and tiptoes around her - but no one loves her. And even though Cornelia Scott pretends that this doesn't matter, it eats away at her.

All of this ends up coming to a head in a confrontation between her and her secretary.

An incredible relationship portrayed.

Grace ends up having a monologue that, in the context of the play, knocks my socks off (I'll include it in my excerpt). Nobody pulls back the veil to reveal the truth like Tennessee Williams. And watch how when Grace finally starts to spit out that "something unspoken" - Miss Cornelia is not angry or offended. She eagerly listens, she wants more. Because it is THE TRUTH. And nobody in her life ever tells her the truth, good or bad.

Here's an excerpt from the play. Miss Cornelia Scott has given Grace a gift - 15 roses to commemorate her 15 years as her secretary. The bouquet is the catalyst for all that follows.

From Something Unspoken, by Tennessee Williams

GRACE. Thank you for the roses.

CORNELIA. I don't want thanks from you either. All that I want is a little return of affection, not much, but sometimes a little!

GRACE. You have that always, Cornelia.

CORNELIA. And one thing more: a little outspokenness, too.

GRACE. Outspokenness?

CORNELIA. Yes, outspokenness, if that's not too much to ask from such a proud young lady!

GRACE. [rising from table] I am not proud and I am not young, Cornelia.

CORNELIA. Sit down. Don't leave the table.

GRACE. Is that an order?

CORNELIA. I don't give orders to you, I make requests.

GRACE. Sometimes the requests of an employer are hard to distinguish from orders. [She sits down]

CORNELIA. Please turn off the victrola. [Grace rises and stops the machine] Grace! -- Don't you feel there's -- something unspoken between us?

GRACE. No. No, I don't.

CORNELIA. I do. I've felt for a long time something unspoken between us.

GRACE. Don't you think there is always something unspoken between two people?

CORNELIA. I see no reason for it.

GRACE. But don't a great many things exist without reason?

CORNELIA. Let's not turn this into a metaphysical discussion.

GRACE. All right. But you mystify me.

CORNELIA. It's very simple. It's just that I feel that there's something unspoken between us that ought to be spoken ... Why are you looking at me like that?

GRACE. How am I looking at you?

CORNELIA. With positive terror!

GRACE. Cornelia!

CORNELIA. You are, you are, but I'm not going to be shut up!

GRACE. Go on, continue, please, do!

CORNELIA. I'm going to, I will, I will, I -- [The phone rings and Grace reaches for it] No, no, no, let it ring! [It goes on ringing] Take it off the hook!

GRACE. Do just let me --

CORNELIA. Off the hook, I told you! [Grace takes the phone off the hook. A voice says: "Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?"]

GRACE. [suddenly she is sobbing] I can't stand it!

CORNELIA. Be STILL! Someone can hear you!]

VOICE. Hello? Hello? Cornelia Scott? [Cornelia seizes phone and slams it back into its cradle]

CORNELIA. Now stop that! Stop that silly little female trick!

GRACE. You say there's something unspoken. Maybe there is. I don't know. But I do know some things are better left unspoken. Also I know that when a silence between two people has gone on for a long time it's like a wall that's impenetrable between them! Maybe between us there is such a wall. One that's impenetrable. Or maybe you can break it. I know I can't. I can't even attempt to. You're the strong one of us two and surely you know it. -- Both of us have turned grey! -- But not the same kind of grey. In that velvet dressing-gown you look like the Emperor Tiberius! -- In his imperial toga! -- Your hair and your eyes are both the color of iron! Iron grey. Invincible looking! People nearby are all somewhat -- frightened of you. They feel your force and they admire you for it. They come to you here for opinions on this or that. What plays are good on Broadway this season, what books are worth reading and what books are trash and what -- what records are valuable and -- what is the proper attitude toward -- bills in Congress! -- Oh, you're a fountain of wisdom! -- And in addition to that, you have your -- wealth! Yes, you have your -- fortune! -- All of your real-estate holdings, your blue-chip stocks, your -- bonds, your -- mansion on Edgewater Drive, your -- shy little -- secretary, your -- fabulous gardens that Pilgrims cannot go into ...

CORNELIA. Oh, yes, now you are speaking, now you are speaking at last! Go on, please go on speaking.

GRACE. I am -- very -- different! -- Also turning grey but my grey is different. Not iron, like yours, not imperial, Cornelia, but grey, yes, grey, the -- color of a ... cobweb ... [She starts the record again, very softly] -- Something white getting soiled, the grey of something forgotten. [The phone rings again. Neither of them seems to notice it] -- And that being the case, that being the difference between our two kinds of grey, yours and mine -- You mustn't expect me to give bold answers to questions that make the house shake with silence! To speak out things that are fifteen years unspoken! That long a time can make a silence a wall that nothing less than dynamite could break through and -- [She picks up the phone] I'm not strong enough, bold enough, I'm not --

CORNELIA. [fiercely] You're speaking into the phone!

GRACE. [into phone] Hello? Oh, yes, she's here. It's Esmerelda Hawkins. [Cornelia snatches the phone]

CORNELIA. What is it, Esmerelda? What are you saying, is the room full of women? What a babble of voices! What are you trying to tell me? Have they held the election already? What, what, what? Oh, this is maddening! I can't hear a word that you're saying, it sounds like the Fourth of July, a great celebration! Ha, ha, now try once more with your mouth closer to the phone! What, what? Would I be willing to what? You can't be serious! Are you out of your mind? [She speaks to Grace in a panicky voice] She wants to know if I would be willing to serve as vice-Regent! [into phone] Esmerelda! Will you listen to me? What's going on? Are there some fresh defections? How does it look? Why did you call me again before the vote? Louder, please speak louder, and cup your mouth to the phone in case they're eavesdropping! Who asked if I would accept the vice-regency, dear? Oh, Mrs. Colby, of course! -- that treacherous witch! -- Esmerelda!! Listen! I -- WILL ACCEPT -- NO OFFICE -- EXCEPT -- THE HIGHEST! Did you understand that? I -- WILL ACCEPT NO OFFICE EXCEPT -- ESMERELDA! [She drops phone into its cradle]

GRACE. Have they held the election?

CORNELIA. [dazed] What? -- No, there's a five-minute recess before the election begins ...

GRACE. Things are not going well?

CORNELIA. "Would you accept the vice-Regency," she asked me, "if for some reason they don't elect you Regent?" -- Then she hung up as if somebody had snatched the phone away from her, or the house had -- caught fire!

GRACE. You shouted so I think she must have been frightened.

CORNELIA. Whom can you trust in this world, whom can you ever rely on?

GRACE. I think perhaps you should have gone to the meeting.

CORNELIA. I think my not being there is much more pointed.

GRACE. [rising again] May I be excused, now?

CORNELIA. No! Stay here!

GRACE. If that is just a request, I --

CORNELIA. That's an order! [Grace sits down and closes her eyes] When you first came to this house -- do you know I didn't expect you?

GRACE. Oh, but Cornelia, you'd invited me here.

CORNELIA. We hardly knew each other.

GRACE. We'd met the summer before when Ralph was --

CORNELIA. Living! Yes, we met at Sewanee where he was a summer instructor.

GRACE. He was already ill.

CORNELIA. I thought what a pity that lovely, delicate girl hasn't found someone she could lean on, who could protect her! And two months later I heard through Clarabelle Drake that he was dead ...

GRACE. You wrote me such a sweet letter, saying how lonely you were since the loss of your mother and urging me to rest here till the shock was over. You seemed to understand how badly I needed to withdraw for a while from -- old associations. I hesitated to come. I didn't until you wrote me a second letter ...

CORNELIA. After I received yours. You wanted urging.

GRACE. I wanted to be quite sure I was really wanted! I only came intending to stay a few weeks. I was so afraid that I would outstay my welcome!

CORNELIA. How blind of you not to see how desperately I wanted to keep you here forever!

Movie quote

"As the years go by, romance fades and something else takes its place. Do you know what that is?"
"Senility."
"Trust."
"That's what I meant."

Happy Birthday, William Blake!

He may be one of my favorite poets, and I have to thank the doppelganger for introducing me to him. Or - I should say - RE-introducing me to him. I know I read "The Chimney Sweep" in the poetry survey class I took in college - but it wasn't until after the conversation he and I had about Blake at the infamous party where we first met - that I thought: "Hmmm. Need to give Blake another look." I am SO glad I did!!! What a poet!!

Fascinating man as well.

He was a poet (virtually unknown in his own lifetime), and also an engraver (I've put some of his startling work in the extended entry - but if you want to see more of his work, check out this link.) He did illustrations for children's books, religious books, volumes of poetry ... and now his stuff is considered pretty much priceless.

William Blake was born in 1757 in London - the third of five children. He went to school until he was 14 - and then had to go to work. He got a job as an apprentice to an engraver - which is how he ended up making his paltry living. He lived in pretty much poverty for his entire life. He married at 25 - to the illiterate Catherine Boucher. Blake taught her how to read, and they ended up becoming collaborators in bringing out volumes of his poetry. He did engravings to illustrate his poems. Catherine was the one who bound the books, and got them ready for publication. The entire thing was a joint production - they did all the work themselves.

The two of them never had any children. They were extremely unconventional, shall we say - and visitors tell of stopping by the Blake house to find the two of them sitting out in their back garden completely naked. Just hanging out, reading, working together - NUDE. No shame. They had a whole philosophy about nakedness, and sex, and innocence - that there was nothing dirty about any of that stuff. It was human prudery that made celebration of the body a dirty thing. But still - some of the tales told about Blake are hysterical. I would have LOVED to meet the guy. He sounds amazing.

William Blake had visions. He speaks about them openly and much of his work has a phantasmagorical religious feeling to it. When he was a young boy, he said he looked up into a tree and saw that it was full of winged angels. He would get visions of Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, yadda yadda.

His view of God, the Spirit, the Holy Trinity, what have you - is so inspiring to me. It's vital, it's alive, and it seems to be all about love. There's not too many people I would call "genius" - but Blake I most certainly would. On the edge of sanity? Sure. Whatever. Many geniuses are.

However - again - William Blake, despite these astonishing works of poetry he put out during his lifetime - died unrecognized.

Now, though, he is considered to be one of the greatest poets in the English language. If you haven't encountered William Blake's stuff, I highly recommend you giving it a look. It's not the EASIEST poetry to get into - but God, every single page is chock-full of so much ... you can't believe that it came from only one man.

His poem about the little lisping chimney-sweep is in the "canon" - If you took any kind of sweeping Poetry 101 course, you probably would have encountered it. I'll post it below. But it's really his long form poems, especially the SPECTACULAR "Marriage of Heaven and Hell", where the guy literally has no equal. None. Blake has no peers.

Here's the one about the chimney sweep, which is - in its own way - an indictment of the society in which he lives - a society that treats its most innocent members in such a horrible way.

"The Chimney Sweep" - from Songs of Innocence

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

And here ... for those of you who are interested ... is "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" in its entirety (accompanied by more of Blake's engravings).

Just go with it. Just succumb.

As you can see, the guy was so ahead of his time that he is timeless. He predicts the Beat generation, he predicts modernism, he would fit in with the poetry slams of today (except that he is, well, you know - GOOD) ... He was a man who plumbed his unconscious for material. He brought what was within him - OUT. His poetry is the literary version of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Van Gogh was not interpreting the sky. That was actually how Van Gogh saw the stars. Get into Van Gogh's world. See the world through HIS eyes. William Blake is the same way.

I think my favorite line from William Blake is:

The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

I have reminded myself of those lines from time to time, when I am surrounded by mediocrity. Mediocrity that wants to bring you down. Wants you to be mediocre as well, so that you won't make anyone feel bad.

Yup. I'm a snob. I plan on being an eagle and I will no longer submit to learn from crows. Don't waste my time.

Thanks, Blake! Wish I could have visited you and your wife in your back garden, and sat around with you all, nude, drinking tea, and talking about angels.

Happy birthday!

Engravings below:

Christ in the sepulcher guarded by angels - 1805

Whirlwind of Lovers (Illustration to Dante's Inferno)

The Ancient of Days - 1794

My birthday

I had a really nice birthday. I came to the theatre and the cast and crew had all signed a card for me. My brother and his girlfriend Melody were in the audience yesterday - I haven't seen my brother in months, so I was SO excited. We had a "talk back" after the show, where the cast, the director, and the writer, sit on the stage and take questions from anyone in the audience who wishes to stay. It was a great conversation. These people ... they're the off-Broadway theatre crowd ... These are not people I know, not people any of us knew ... It's just amazing. Nothing like live theatre, and it's people like THAT who help keep it alive. It was great fun. Great fun, too, to see Brendan and Melody out there in the audience, listening, participating. My character is kind of a polarizing character. People either love it, or don't get it. We heard both sides during the talk-back. Interesting. An audience member said, "So ... you are a psychic who works with the police?" I said, "Well, I prefer clairvoyant ... but yes ..." hahahaha It was a very good discussion.

Afterwards, Ted (my director), Brendan, Melody and I went out to a local pub and drank beer and ate hot chicken wings and jalapeno poppers and talked about the play. Brendan gave me his birthday present: a 2-disc collector's edition of Casablanca. WHOO-HOO!!! Can't WAIT to see it! We also had an awesome conversation about Bob Dylan. It was great. We're all Dylan fans - so it was really interesting, really fun. Brendan told a great story about the meeting between John Lennon and Bob Dylan. They were fans of each other - this is the early 60s - when the Beatles had just come to America. Dylan goes to see a Beatles show. And afterwards, he gets into a huge limo with John Lennon. They're kind of awkward with each other, since they admire each other so much, etc. And finally Dylan says to Lennon: "You know, you don't have to write songs just about girls." hahahaha I love that story.

Afterwards, Brendan, Melody and I took a long walk through the city streets. Talking, laughing ... Had a nice phone conversation with my parents. They're proud of me. Of what I'm up to right now in my life. It brings a lump to my throat to know they're proud of me. I also had a brief phone conversation with Cashel, who was on the cusp of falling asleep - therefore, he was kind of weepy and irritable. hahaha "Do you need to go to sleep now, honey?" Weepy small Cashel voice coming at me over the phone line: "Yes." "Okay. You go sleep now."

We sat in Starbucks. We talked. We laughed. It's been months since we all were together. Brendan had on his Red Sox jacket. Melody is beautiful. A member of our family.

Came home and talked with my sister Jean for a while, just a short birthday call. A couple of other friends left messages on my cell phone with birthday wishes.

It was a good birthday.

The Books: "Talk To Me Like the Rain ... And Let Me Listen" (Tennessee Williams)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is a one-act called Talk To Me Like the Rain ... And Let Me Listen.

A favorite with actors - it's a two person play. There are two unnamed characters: Man and Woman. They live in a cold-water flat on the Lower East Side. He is a drunk. She is wasting away to nothing. There is intimacy between them - the intimacy of desperation. He woke up that morning in some random hotel in a bathtub full of ice cubes. No idea how he got there. He found his way home. Meanwhile, she has drunk nothing but water for 3 days. She stares out the window. She is wasting away. On purpose. Actors love this play because both characters have nice long juicy monologues - and also it's one of those plays where all you need to do is just show up, be honest, be in the moment, and connect to the other actor. It's a very rich piece of writing. He keeps begging her to talk: "talk to me like the rain ... and let me listen ..."

I've seen this play done where it's been TERRIBLE. The writing is poetic, heightened, Williams-esque ... and when the actors don't get inside of it, don't own the language, and also don't connect to each other - they look like jagoffs. But I have also seen this play done (my friend Jen did it - this is the production I'm talking of) where it is absolutely RIVETING. You are drawn into the world of these two people who ... even though they are on their last legs ... love each other more than anything.

The play doesn't "go" anywhere - there is no plot ... so I'll just excerpt a bit from their conversation.

From Talk To Me Like the Rain ... And Let Me Listen, by Tennessee Williams

MAN. Can you talk to me, honey? Can you talk to me, now?

WOMAN. Yes!

MAN. Well, talk to me like the rain and -- let me listen, let me lie here and -- listen ... [He falls back across the bed, rolls on his belly, one arm hanging over the side of the bed and occasionally drumming the floor with his knuckles. The mandolin continues] It's been too long a time since -- we levelled with each other. Now tell me things: What have you been thinking in the silence? -- While I've been passed around like a dirty postcard in the city ... Tell me, talk to me! Talk to me like the rain and I will lie here and listen.

WOMAN. I --

MAN. You've got to, it's necessary! I've got to know, so talk to me like the rain and I will lie here and listen, I will lie here and --

WOMAN. I want to go away.

MAN. You do?

WOMAN. I want to go away!

MAN. How?

WOMAN. Alone! [She returns to window] I'll register under a made-up name at a little hotel on the coast ...

MAN. What name?

WOMAN. Anna -- Jones ... The chambermaid will be a little old lady who has a grandson that she talks about ... I'll sit in the chair while the old lady makes the bed, my arms will hang over the -- sides, and -- her voice will be -- peaceful ... She'll tell me what her grandson had for supper! -- tapioca and -- cream ... [The Woman sits by the window and sips the water] -- The room will be shadowy, cool, and filled with the murmur of --

MAN. Rain?

WOMAN. Yes. Rain.

MAN. And?

WOMAN. Anxiety will -- pass -- over!

MAN. Yes ...

WOMAN. After a while the little old woman will say, Your bed is made up, Miss, and I'll say -- Thank you ... Take a dollar out of my pocketbook. The door will close. And I'll be alone again. The windows will be tall with long blue shutters and it will be a season of rain -- rain -- rain ... My life will be like the room, cool -- shadowy cool and -- filled with the murmur of --

MAN. Rain....

WOMAN. I will receive a check in the mail every week that I can count on. The little old lady will cash the checks for me and get me books from a library and pick up -- laundry ... I'll always have clean things! -- I'll dress in white. I'll never be very strong or have much energy left, but have enough after a while to walk on the -- esplanade -- to walk on the beach without effort ... In the evening I'll walk on the esplanade along the beach. I'll have a certain beach where I go to sit, a little way from the pavillion where the band plays Victor Herberg selections while it gets dark ... I'll have a big room with shutters on the windows. There will be a season of rain, rain, rain. And I will be so exhausted after my life in the city that I won't mind just listening to the rain. I'll be so quiet. The lines will disappear from my face. My eyes won't be inflamed at all any more. I'll have no friends. I'll have no acquaintances even. When I get sleepy, I'll walk slowly back to the little hotel. The clerk will say, Good evening, Miss Jones, and I'll just barely smile and take my key. I won't ever look at a newspaper or hear a radio; I won't have any idea what's going on in the world. I will not be conscious of time passing at all ... One day I will look in the mirror and I will see that my hair is beginning to turn grey and for the first time I will realize that I have been living in this little hotel under a made-up name without any friends or acquaintances or any kind of connections for twenty-five years. It will surprise me a little bit but it won't bother me any. I will be glad that time has passed as easily as that. Once in a while I may go out to the movies. I will sit in the back row with all that darkness around me and figures sitting motionless on each side not conscious of me. Watching the screen. Imaginary people. People in stories. I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won't have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I'll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I'll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain. I'll wake up and hear the rain and go back to sleep. A season of rain, rain, rain ... Then one day, when I have closed a book or come home alone from the movies at eleven o'clock at night -- I will look in the mirror and see that my hair has turned white. White, absolutely white. As white as the foam on the waves. [She gets up and moves about the room as she continues] I'll run my hands down my body and feel how amazingly light and thin I have grown. Oh, my, how thin I will be. Almost transparent. Not hardly real any more. Then I will realize, I will know, sort of dimly, that I have been staying on here in this little hotel, without any -- social connections, responsibilities, anxieties or disturbances of any kind -- for just about fifty years. Half a century. Practically a lifetime. I won't even remember the names of the people I knew before I came here nor how it feels to be someone waiting for someone that -- may not come ... Then I will know -- looking in the mirror -- the first time has come for me to walk out alone once more on the esplanade with the strong wind beating on me, the white clean wind that blows from the edge of the world, from even further than that, from the cool outer edges of space, from even beyond whatever there is beyond the edges of space ... [She sits down again unsteadily by the window] -- Then I'll go out and walk on the esplanade. I'll walk alone and be blown thinner and thinner.

MAN. Baby. Come back to bed.

WOMAN. And thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner! [He crosses to her and raises her forcibly from the chair] -- Till finally I won't have any body at all, and the wind picks me up in its cool white arms forever, and takes me away!

MAN. [presses his mouth to her throat] Come on back to bed with me!

WOMAN. I want to go away, I want to go away! [He releases her and she crosses to center of room sobbing uncontrollably. She sits down on the bed. He sighs and leans out the window, the light flickering beyond him, the rain coming down harder. The Woman shivers and crosses her arms against her breasts. Her sobbing dies out but she breathes with effort. Light flickers and wind whines coldly. The Man remains leaning out. At last she says to him softly --] Come back to bed. Come on back to bed, baby ... [He turns his lost face to her as --]

THE CURTAIN FALLS

The comfort of conspiracy theories

The thing about conspiracy theories are ... they are comforting. They assure you that there is some ORDER in the universe, that there are connections between not just some events, but ALL events. There are no such things as coincidences in the middle of a conspiracy theory. When I've been in love with someone, and he hasn't loved me back ... I tend to read into all the coincidences - he likes this and so do I - therefore THAT means that we should be together ... etc. I draw conclusions based on COINCIDENCES. This is a very human thing, but I certainly wouldn't want to LIVE in that mind-space. Where everything means something, and every random event means something. It must be what it feels like to be an end-of-the-world apocalyptic Christian. The wind blows from the East ... Therefore, the end of the world is coming. It is a place of CERTAINTY. I know that human beings, in general, are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Of course. It's awful to just accept that you CAN'T know what is going to happen. But that's the deal, that to me is one of the points of life: to be able to BEAR uncertainty. Conspiracy theorists absolutely cannot bear uncertainty. And the truly paranoid ones are the ones who just can't deal with reality. The reality sometimes is quite simple. But it's NEVER simple to a conspiracy theorist.

If you are a conspiracy theorist - you see connecting threads everywhere. Your mindset becomes grandiose, paranoid ... You believe in the essential BIG-ness of things. By that I mean: everything happens on a grand scale. There is some kind of over-riding SENSE to be made of things ... and if you can only connect enough of the threads ... you will be able to see clearly, through the veil of lies put out by some enormous organization - the government, the CIA, the ATF, the Rat Pack (Marilyn Monroe's death, in case you're wondering), whatever - you will pierce through the lies and come close to the actual root of all power. You believe that there IS a root of all power. NOTHING is coincidental. There is no chaos. EVERYTHING makes sense, in a kind of unbearable way. It appears on the surface to be chaos, but if you can just make sense of the cacophony, you will see the wizard behind the curtain. You will actually SEE him. The most important thing for a conspiracy theorist is that they actually have to believe that there IS a wizard in the first place. They have to believe that someone, somewhere, no matter how hidden, knows the TRUTH of what is going on ... and someone, somewhere, holds the KEY to putting the pieces together ...

To a conspiracy theorist, there is actually such a thing as power - plus efficiency. Power plus efficiency plus an ability to keep a secret. These three things MUST exist in a very very real way to conspiracy theorists, and they must be interlocked. I believe in power. I believe in efficiency. And I believe that there is such a thing as being able to keep a secret. But do I believe that those three particular things can actually go hand in hand? Not on your LIFE.

I'm fascinated by conspiracy theorists. It seems to me it would be very comforting if I could believe what they believe. If I could believe that someone, somewhere, knew what the hell they were doing ... and if only I could pierce through the web of LIES ... I could come close to the source of real power. It would be comforting to actually believe that there WAS a secret, and that I could pull back the curtain to see the phony wizard.

I can see why people succumb to the conspiracy theory mindset. It makes perfect sense to me.

It's a childlike response to the unfairness of things - the fact that we can't KNOW everything - the fact that some things just HAPPEN. The conspiracy theorist cannot stop asking "Why?" Asking "why" is not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, people who don't ask "Why" freak me out. They seem like dumbbells. Sheep. Willing to believe anything. They have their OWN kind of certainty. But if you know any conspiracy theorists - and I do - then you know that their "Why"s get more and more elaborate, more and more paranoid ... Nothing ever just IS to a conspiracy theorist. That CAN'T be all there is. There are NO accidents.

Now, to me - I can certainly succumb to a conspiracy theory mindset. It is extremely compelling and attractive. How wonderful would it be to truly believe that someone out there knew what the hell he was doing. Whoever that person is. This is one of the reasons why politics, government, coup d'etats, revolutions - all that stuff - has so gripped my fascination for so many years. Why? I was talking to CW about this once (because frankly, he seems like the kind of guy who "knows stuff" - hahaha), and I said, "I just ... want to get high enough up in my learning ... so that I can know what the big guys know. Like ... how high up in power do you have to go to really get a nice view of the whole landscape?" I want to get up high enough to really be able to SEE ... surely SOMEONE out there has the whole picture in mind!

But I actually think that, in general, very very very few people have the whole picture. I have my own opinion about the people who have large pictures in their minds ... you might have your own. To me, guys like Robert Kaplan are looking at a large picture. Christopher Hitchens. VS Naipaul. Ryzsard Kapuscinski (his essay called "The Soccer War" is a perfect example of what I am talking about. The ability to be improvisational, flexible, and to admit that you do not KNOW something - Kapuscinski didn't know what was going on, and yet - all signals pointed to war, because of the riot at a soccer game. Maybe that doesn't seem logical - so what that they're rioting at a soccer game? ... but impending war was what he sensed, and turns out that he was right, that was what was REALLY going on. Anyone who gives a crap about how things really happen in this world should read "The Soccer War" and that's all I'm saying. Genius.) People like Bernard Lewis. Elias Canetti. Or the obvious choice of Samuel Huntington. Perhaps the best example is Rebecca West. Now there was a woman with large global pictures in her head. Her accomplishment in this regard has so far not been matched. Now you may disagree with some of these people's conclusions. I disagree with some of their conclusions too. But to me? Those people are BIG PICTURE PEOPLE, and what they see is a reflection of what I see. It's just that they have better access than I do, and bigger vocabularies. But when I read their stuff, I start to feel like I can actually get a GLIMPSE of how things work.

You'll notice that NONE of these people are government people. They are independent thinkers, writers, journalists.

But again - it's a short list. Like I said: "very very very few people". And "very very very few people" cannot create some vast conspiracy involving multiple government agencies. My small group of friends can barely keep a secret among us. Fuggedaboutit.

Lastly: in general, I think that government is pretty much incompetent. I mean, please. Let us look at how much governments have gotten WRONG in the last 100 years. Enormous globe-changing events NOT predicted or foreseen - despite the fact that massive bureaucracies have been put into place for that sole purpose alone, signals missed, signals crossed, signals misinterpreted, huge wars hitting us by surprise ... etc. etc. Now, if there was some all-powerful Wizard behind some curtain - wouldn't you think he would be able to SEE what was coming?

I don't think the government is competent enough to tie its own shoes, let alone create vast international conspiracies. Bureacracies in general. Sheesh. Filled with incompetent people who don't give a shite. On a tiny level: Have you called the DMV lately and tried to get a change of address on your license? Incompetence is indemic.

The other thing about conspiracy theorists is that unless you believe what they believe they are impossible to talk to. There is not a rational mind at work there. They are delusional. And these people are not crazy. They are regular people, not in need of institutionalization, but they are delusional. You can't have a rational discussion with them, and try to point out the holes in their big elaborate theories. It's like trying to have a rational discussion about interpretations of the Bible with an evangelical born-again Christian. You cannot pierce their certainty. You cannot. Their entire worldview is set up so that their certainty is unpierceable. You can never get "in there" with them. Because they know the truth. And that's final. The Bible is THEIRS. End of story. They've got an answer for everything. How comforting, right? How comforting to truly believe that you know it all.

However, again - I see the attraction. I'm as fascinated by Area 51 as the next girl. And after I read Marilyn: The Last Take I became CONVINCED that Marilyn's death was orchestrated by the highest levels of our government, to shut her up. Now ... some of this may indeed be true - but again, when you come right down to it: what I know about most governnmental organizations is that they are slothful bureaucratic mazes full of incompetent unimaginative people who could not be flexible or improvisational if you put a gun to their heads.

It would be comforting to believe in vast interlinking conspiracies. It really would be. It would be comforting to believe that bureaucracies were actually EFFICIENT enough to cover up ANYTHING ... instead of believing that they were bumbling careerists trying to protect their small bit of turf. It would be comforting to believe that there IS a big picture, and, like I said to CW ... if I could just get high enough up ... I could SEE what was REALLY going on up there.

I just don't believe that there is any "there there".

The Books: "This Property is Condemned" (Tennessee Williams)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

Next Tennessee Williams play on the shelf is, along with 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (excerpt here), probably his most famous one-act - and it is called This Property is Condemned. This Property is Condemned is also probably one of his most difficult pieces to stage, for various reasons, the first being: the lead girl is 13 years old. Finding a child actor who can act is difficult enough - but to find one who can play this lead part?? It would require a Jodie Foster level of child actor talent. A child actress who can also convey a world-weary sense of knowingness. This is a damaged young girl. A Blanche DuBois in training. She is sexually knowing. She is a child. A tough mix. Other child actresses who could do it ... Anna Paquin would have been great ... maybe a young Claire Danes ... And the other character, Tom, has to be a 16 year old boy. So again - there are casting struggles here. If the characters are not in their teens, the play doesn't really work.

Also - it's only 9 or 10 pages long, but it is an entire WORLD created. This is why it's so famous, I think. The two characters - Willie and Tom - are complete individuals, three-dimensional ... Williams is amazing how he just tosses you right into their world.

It takes place in Mississippi - in the middle of nowhere. A nowhere town with train tracks running through it.

Willie is a 13 year old girl. Listen to how Williams describes her to us. Makes me think he also could have written novels:

She is a remarkable apparition -- thin as a beanpole and dressed in outrageous cast-off finery. She wears a long blue velvet party dress with a filthy cream lace collar and sparkling rhinestone beads. On her feet are battered silver kid slippers with large ornamental buckles. Her wrists and her fingers are resplendent with dimestone jewelry. She has applied rouge to her childish face in artless crimson daubs and her lips are made up in a preposterous Cupid's bow. She is about thirteen and there is something ineluctably childlike and innocent in her appearance despite the makeup. She laughs frequently and wildly and with a sort of precocious, tragic abandon.

God. Williams just helps actors out enormously with character descriptions like that one.

The curtain goes up and we see her balancing herself precariously on a railroad track, walking along, trying to keep steady - it is a game, she tries to go further and further every day, starting at the water tank - in one hand she holds a doll, in the other she holds a rotten banana. Tom strolls along, he is holding a kite ... he strikes up a conversation with Willie. He has heard about her, in the town, through gossip, but hasn't met her before. She dropped out of school years ago.

Her story is this: She and her parents and her older sister Alva ran a boarding house right next to the train tracks. The main clientele were railroad men - and most of them continued to stop over there because of the attraction of Alva. All of this comes out in Willie's conversation with Tom. We can read between the lines of Willie's tale - Alva was sleeping with these men for money, and for things. They gave her chocolates, "jewels", they took her out ... But make no mistake - "they" took her out, not just one of the guys. Alva was sleeping with the entire staff of the railroad. The boarding house was a sort of one-girl whorehouse. Willie, a child, witnessed all of this and knew that the only thing she wanted to be when she 'grew up' was to be just like Alva. Meanwhile, Alva was probably 16 years old while all this was going on ... so the entire story is sordid, depressing, and awful.

Then, Willie informs Tom, her mother died ... her father disappeared ... and for a while it was just Willie and Alva. Then Alva got sick in the lungs, and after a brief illness, she died. Willie is now on her own, orphaned, and still living in the old boarding house - which now has a big sign outside saying: THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. Willie hides upstairs when the inspectors come. She rummages through garbage pails for food. And she dresses up in her dead sister's whorish clothes. She puts makeup on her face. She is a garish little whore-in-training.

The whole thing is just awful. AWFUL. Williams is remarkable how he gets all of this information out. The entire play is exposition - basically Tom asking questions, and Willie answering - but none of it feels like exposition. It feels like this awful story being revealed, slowly ... and the MOST awful thing about it is that Willie doesn't really see it as awful. She wants to be a whore - she wishes the railroad men would come around again - she wants them to give her chocolates, and jewelry, and take her out dancing ... but she is only 13 years old.

Argh. Great one-act. One of the best ever written I'd say. Beginning playwrights would do well to study the CRAP out of this play!!

I'll start my excerpt almost 3/4 of the way through the play and take it to the end.

From This Property is Condemned, by Tennessee Williams

TOM. Frank Waters said that ...

WILLIE. What?

TOM. You know.

WILLIE. Know what?

TOM. You took him inside and danced for him with your clothes off.

WILLIE. Oh. Crazy Doll's hair needs washing. I'm scared to wash it though 'cause her head might come unglued where she had that compound fracture of the skull. I think that most of her brains spilled out. She's been acting silly ever since. Saying an' doing the most outrageous things.

TOM. Why don't you do that for me?

WILLIE. What? Put glue on your compound fracture?

TOM. Naw. What you did for Frank Waters.

WILLIE. Because I was lonesome then an' I'm not lonesome now. You can tell Frank Waters that. Tell him that I've inherited all of my sister's beaus. I go out steady with men in responsible jobs. The sky sure is white. Ain't it? White as a clean piece of paper. In Five A we used to draw pictures. Miss Preston would give us a piece of white foolscap an' tell us to draw what we pleased.

TOM. What did you draw?

WILLIE. I remember I drawn her a picture one time of my old man getting conked with a bottle. She thought it was good, Miss Preson, she said, "Look here. Here's a picture of Charlie Chaplin with his hat on the side of his head!" I said, "Aw, naw, that's not Charlie Chaplin, that's my father, an' that's not his hat, it's a bottle!"

TOM. What did she say?

WILLIE. Oh, well. You can't make a school-teacher laugh.
You're the only star
In my blue hea-VEN ...
The principal used to say there must've been something wrong with my home atmosphere because of the fact that we took in railroad men an' some of 'em slept with my sister.

TOM. Did they?

WILLIE. She was The Main Attraction. The house is sure empty now.

TOM. You ain't still living there, are you?

WILLIE. Sure.

TOM. By yourself?

WILLIE. Uh-huh. I'm not supposed to be but I am. The property is condemned but there's nothing wrong with it. Some county investigator come snooping around yesterday. I recognized her by the shape of her hat. It wasn't exactly what I would call stylish-looking.

TOM. Naw?

WILLIE. It looked like something she took off the lid of the stove. Alva knew lots about style. She had ambitions to be a designer for big wholesale firms in Chicago. She used to submit her pictures. It never worked out.
You're the only star
In my blue hea-ven ...

TOM. What did you do? About the investigator?

WILLIE. Laid low upstairs. Pretended like no one was home.

TOM. Well, how do you manage to keep on eating?

WILLIE. Oh, I don't know. You keep a sharp lookout you see things lying around. This banana, perfectly good, for instance. Thrown in a garbage pail in back of the Blue Bird Cafe. [She finishes the banana and tosses away the peel]

TOM. [grinning] Yeh. Miss Preston for instance.

WILLIE. Naw, not her. She gives you a white piece of paper, says, "Draw what you please!" One time I drawn her a picture of -- Oh, but I told you that, huh? Will you give Frank Waters a message?

TOM. What?

WILLIE. Tell him the freight sup'rintendent has bought me a pair of kid slippers. Patent. The same as the old ones of Alva's. I'm going to dances with them at Moon Lake Casino. All night I'll be dancing an' come home drunk in the morning! We'll have serenades with all kinds of musical instruments. Trumpets an' trombones. An' Hawaiian steel guitars. Yeh! Yeh! [She rises excitedly] The sky will be white like this.

TOM. [impressed] Will it?

WILLIE. Uh-huh. [She smiles vaguely and turns slowly toward him] White -- as a clean -- piece of paper ... [then excitedly] I'll draw -- pictures on it!

TOM. Will you?

WILLIE. Sure!

TOM. Pictures of what?

WILLIE. Me dancing! With the freight sup'rintendent! In a pair of patent kid shoes! Yeh! Yeh! With French heels on them as high as telegraph poles! An' they'll play my favorite music!

TOM. Your favorite?

WILLIE. Yeh. The same as Alva's. [breathlessly, passionately]
You're the only STAR --
In my blue HEA-VEN ...
I'll ---

TOM. What?

WILLIE. I'll -- wear a corsage!

TOM. What's that?

WILLIE. Flowers to pin on your dress at a formal affair! Rosebuds! Violets! And lilies-of-the-valley! When you come home it's withered but you stick 'em in a bowl of water to freshen 'em up.

TOM. Uh-huh.

WILLIE. That's what Alva done. [She pauses, and in the silence the train whistles] The Cannonball Express ...

TOM. You think a lot about Alva. Don't you?

WILLIE. Oh, not so much. Now an' then. It wasn't like death in the movies. Her beaux disappeared. An' they didn't have violins playing. I'm going back now.

TOM. Where to, Willie?

WILLIE. The water-tank.

TOM. Yeah?

WILLIE. An' start all over again. Maybe I'll break some kind of continuous record. Alva did once. At a dance marathon in Mobile. Across the state line. Alabama. You can tell Frank Waters everything that I told you. I don't have time for inexperienced people. I'm going out now with popular railroad men, men with good salaries, too. Don't you believe me?

TOM. No. I think you're drawing an awful lot on your imagination.

WILLIE. Well, if I wanted to I could prove it. But you wouldn't be worth convincing. [She smooths out Crazy Doll's hair] I'm going to live for a long, long time like my sister. An' when my lungs get affected I'm going to die like she did -- maybe not like in the movies, with violins playing -- but with my pearl earrings on an' my solid gold beads from Memphis ...

TOM. Yes?

WILLIE. [examining Crazy Doll very critically] An' then I guess --

TOM. What?

WILLIE. [gaily but with a slight catch] Somebody else will inherit all of my beaux! The sky sure is white.

TOM. It sure is.

WILLIE. White as a clean piece of paper. I'm going back now.

TOM. So long.

WILLIE. Yeh. So long. [She starts back along the railroad track, weaving grotesquely to keep her balance. She disappears. Tom wets his finger and holds it up to test the wind. Willie is heard singing from a distance]
You're the only star
In my blue heaven --
[There is a brief pause. The stage begins to darken]
An' you're shining just --
For me!

CURTAIN

Arranging

A wonderful essay about the importance of how you arrange your books. Only obsessives need apply. (Thanks to Iain, for the link!!)

An excerpt:

It's bad enough having huge gaps in your reading, even worse in your interests, without declaring it in your bookshelves. I imagine the volumes being given the once-over by one of the more waspish professors at UCL who once took me to task, rather randomly, for not being Scottish. I see their contents being analysed scathingly by a brilliant Oxford don who objected to a bunch of flowers I gave her one Christmas because she liked her flowers growing in the earth.

The absences, of course, are as shaming as the small areas of speciality. Why the nine biographies of Judy Garland? Why every book by Henry James but not a word of Hemingway? Why four annotated Tennysons? Why no Virginia Woolf? If only I could argue that the books I have simply represent me; but in that case how to explain the glut of Dryden? And where are all the embarrassing titles? Surely when none of those are on view something in the household must be seriously amiss.

Ha ha!! I love that! I feel the same way about my library - although my library is something I am, indeed, obsessively proud of. Hmmmm ... only one Faulkner book on the shelf. How did THAT happen? And then I have 7 books about Cary Grant ... hmmmm. Interesting. The books reveal my interests. My personality. My passions. I have three shelves of biographies of Founding Fathers, and books about the American Revolution. I have three shelves of biographies of various entertainers. I have probably 10 books on Iran alone. I have every collection of Sylvia Plath's poetry. hahaha It kind of says it all, doesn't it?

I know that the first thing I do when I go into someone's home ... or, no, not the first thing ... but one of the things I love to do when going into someone's house for the first time is to peruse their bookshelves. The books people buy, the books people choose to have on display, tell you a lot about who they are. And I admit it: if there are no books, I notice immediately. To quote Miss Clavel: "Something is not right!" The lack of books comes across as a silent scream.

Here's the breakdown of my library (in my small small apartment). Come to think of it - that post already needs to be updated. I have since acquired another bookshelf which is in the kitchen (bringing the total # of bookshelves in my kitchen to three!) - and I have filled that bookshelf with all of my books on writing, my compilation books - best essays of 2004, 2005, etc. - all my essay books - Orwell, Didion, EB White ... And then, randomly, the bottom shelf holds all of my Cary Grant videos. You know, a city girl's gotta store shit where she can!!

Casablanca Appreciation Day

So. Today is the anniversary of the premiere of Casablanca. It premiered on this day in New York City. Reviews were actually mixed - it was seen as just another melodrama that Warner Brothers had become so practiced at churning out - but the public loved it and it went on to win an Academy Award for best picture in 1943. And of course now - the film has reached cult status.

I have put together 5,000 quotes about Casablanca from the book The Making of Casablanca.

Here is one of my favorite anecdotes from the book. hahahaha Claude Rains is one of my favorite actors.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy all the quotes. A couple are in the extended entry here:

Assorted quotes:

Billy Wilder says, "This is the most wonderful claptrap that was ever put on the screen ... Claptrap that you can't get out of your mind. The set was crummy. By God, I've seen Mr. Greenstreet sit in that same wicker chair in fifty pictures before and after, and I knew the parrots that were there. But it worked. It worked absolutely divinely. No matter how sophisticated you are and it's on television and you've seen it 500 times, you turn it on."

Sociologist Todd Gitlin writes:

Casablanca dramatizes archetypes. The main one is the imperative to move from disengagement and cynicism to commitment. The question is why Casablanca does this more effectively than other films. Several other Bogart films of the same period -- Passage to Marseilles, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo -- enact exactly the same conversation. But the Rick character does not simply go from disengagement to engagement but from bitter and truculent denial of his past to a recovery and reignotion of the past. And that is very moving, particularly because it is also associated with Oedipal drama. But there is also a third myth narrative, a story about coming to terms with the past. Rick had this wonderful romance; he also had his passionate commitment. It seems gone forever. But you can get it back. That is a very powerful mythic story, because everybody has lost something, and the past it, by definition, something people have lost. This film enables people to feel that they have redeemed the past and recovered it, and yet without nostalgia. Rick doesn't want to be back in Paris. And the plot is brilliantly constructed so that these three myths are not three separate tales, but one story with three myths rushing down the same channel.

Aljean Harmetz, author of The Making of Casablanca writes:

I was in elementary school during World War II; I did my part in the war by rolling tinfoil and rubber bands into balls and bringing them to the Warners Beverly Theatre on Saturday mornings. World War II had receded with all its certainties and moral imperatives, leaving muddy flats behind. The world is a cornucopia of grays. I believed the romantic interpretation of Casablanca then -- love lost for the good of the world -- and believe it now. But it is the very ambiguity of Casablanca that keeps it current. Part of what draws moviegoers to the movie again and again is their uncertainty about what the movie is saying at the end ...

Casablanca's potent blend of romance and idealism -- a little corny and mixed with music and the good clean ache of sacrifice and chased down with a double slug of melodrama -- is available at the corner video store, but Casablanca couldn't be made today. There is too much talk and not enough action. There are too many characters too densely packed, and the plot spins in a hard-to-catch-your-balance circular way instead of walking a straight line. There is no Humphrey Bogart to allow the audience a permissible romance without feeling sappy. And the studio would insist that all the ambiguity be written out in the second draft.

Happy birthday, Casablanca! Hard to imagine the American film landscape without it.

Casablanca Appreciation Day

From The Making of Casablanca:

"Bogart had competence," says Billy Wilder. "You felt that, if that big theatre where you were watching Casablanca caught on fire, Bogart could save you. Gable had that same competence and, nowadays, Mr. Clint Eastwood." But Gable is too heroic for a disillusioned world. Three decades after his death, Bogart still seems modern. "He wore no rose-colored glasses," wrote Mary Astor. "There was something about it all that made him contemptuous and bitter. He related to people as though they had no clothes on -- and no skin, for that matter."

Continued below:

Film critic Stanley Kauffmann was born in 1916 and has watched six generations of film heroes. "People never go to see my favorite American film actor of all, Fredric March," says Kauffmann ruefully. "Bogart absolutely encapsulates permissible romance. In this disillusioned, disenchanted world here was a romantic hero we could accept. I think that that disenchantment began with World War I and the emergence of what could be called the Hemingway -- the undeluded -- generation. And I think that that revulsion with the romances and the lies of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century has persisted. There have been plenty of representatives of the lovely bucolic strain of American life on the screen. Bogart was someone urban -- in a sense more jagged and abrasive than Cagney -- who you felt was suffering. Cagney was triumphant. Bogart was tough, but he had sensitivity. Certainly the epitome he stood for was in Casablanca. I was misinformed. That's the twentieth century."

Casablanca Appreciation Day

From The Making of Casablanca:

Of the seventy-five actors and actresses who had bit parts and larger roles in Casablanca, almost all were immigrants of one kind or another. Of the fourteen who were given screen credit, only Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page were born in America. Some had come for private reasons. Ingrid Bergman, who would lodge comfortably in half a dozen countries and half a dozen languages, once said that she was a flyttfagel, one of Sweden's migratory birds. Some, including Sydney Greenstreet and Claude Rains, wanted richer careers. But at least two dozen were refugees from the stain that was spreading across Europe. There were a dozen Germans and Austrians, nearly as many French, the Hungarians SZ Sakall and Peter Lorre, and a handful of Italians.

Continued below

"If you think of Casablanca and think of all those small roles being played by Hollywood actors faking the accents, the picture wouldn't have had anything like the color and tone it had," says Pauline Kael.

Dan Seymour remembers looking up during the singing of the Marseillaise and discovering that half of his fellow actors were crying. "I suddenly realized that they were all real refugees," says Seymour.

Casablanca Appreciation Day

From The Making of Casablanca:

Bogart and Rains admired each other, and that admiration comes through their scenes together. What seems to be a genuine friendship between Rick and Renault takes the sting out of the ending of Casablanca. "My father loved Humphrey Bogart," says Jessica Rains. "He told me so." The cockney who turned himself into a gentleman was unexpectedly compatible with the gentle-born son of a doctor and a famous illustrator who turned himself into a rowdy. "Professional" is the word the people they worked with pin, like a badge, to both men. "Bogart never missed a cue," says script supervisor Meta Carpenter. "He was completely professional." Rains, says assistant director Lee Katz, "was very professional altogether." To the Warner hairdressers, said Jean Burt, Bogart and Bette Davis were "the real pros. They were on time; they knew their lines; they knew their craft."

Casablanca Appreciation Day

From The Making of Casablanca:

[During shooting] Bogart was snappish and moody. Love scenes were uncharted waters for him. "I've always gotten out of my scrapes in front of the camera with a handy little black automatic," he told a journalist who visited the Casablanca set during production. "It's a lead pipe cinch. But this. Well, this leaves me a bit baffled." The interview is typically frothy and insubstantial as Bogart plays with the idea of becoming a sophisticated lover or a caveman lover. But, even as he jokes about it, his uneasiness is obvious. "I'm not up on this love stuff and don't know just what to do."

Continued below

According to a memoir by Bogart's friend Bathaniel Benchley, before Casablanca began shooting, a mutal friend, Mel Baker, advised Bogart to stand still and make Bergman come to him in the love scenees. Bogart appears to have taken the advice, but his reticence may have been as much innate as calculated. Nearly a dozen years after Casablanca, Bogart told a biographer that love scenes still embarrassed him. "I have a personal phobia maybe because I don't do it very well," he said.

"What the women liked about Bogey, I think," said Bette Davis, "was that when he did love scenes he held back -- like many men do -- and they understood that." Miscast as an Irish horse trainer in Dark Victory, Bogart had tried to make love to Davis, who played his rich employer. Said Davis, "Up until Betty Bacall I think Bogey was really embarrassed doing love scenes, and that came over as a certain reticence. With her he let go, and it was great. She matched his insolence."

However distant Bogart and Bergman may have been from each other in real life, and however uneasy Bogart may have been with Bergman in his arms, their love scenes have the poignancy and passion that Hollywood calls chemistry. "I honestly can't explain it," says Pauline Kael, "but Bogart had that particular chemistry with ladylike women. He had it with Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen and he so conspicuously had it with Lauren Bacall -- who pretended to be a tough girl but really wasn't -- in To Have and Have Not. But he didn't have it with floozy-type girls."

Critic Stanley Kauffmann explains the match between Bogart and Bergman as the resonance of a relationship between brash America and cultured Europe. "She was like a rose," he says. "You could almost smell the fragrance of her in the picture, and you could feel his whiskers when you looked at the screen. It was intangible."

Casablanca Appreciation Day

From The Making of Casablanca:

Of the stars, Bergman had the more difficult job. Bogart had only to play a man in love. Foreshadowing without giving away too much, Bergman had to let the audience know that love wasn't enough.

ILSA. And I hate this war so much. Oh, it's a crazy world. Anything can happen. If you shouldn't get away, I mean, if something should happen to keep us apart. Wherever they put you and wherever I'll be, I want you to know that I -- Kiss me! Kiss me as though it were the last time.

Continued below

And Bergman had to hold the audience even when she was saying dialogue that was so richly romantic that it was almost a parody, including, "Was that cannon fire? Or was it my heart pounding?"

Her voice and her face could make almost anything believable. In 1947, several top sound men agreed that Bergman had the sexiest voice of any actress. "The middle register of her voice is rich and vibrant, which gives it a wonderfully disturbing quality," said Francis Scheid. "It's sexy in a refined, high-minded way." "The face is quite amazing," says Pauline Kael. "I think she had a physical awkwardness on the stage and in her early films, but I think somehow that the beauty of her face obviated it. Even in Casablanca, her physical movements are not very expressive. But you didn't really care."

Casablanca Appreciation Day

From The Making of Casablanca:

Casablanca started on Stage 12A with the flashback to Rick and Ilsa's romance in Paris. It was an accident that Bogart was required to make love to Bergman almost before he was introduced to her. Originally, production was to start in Rick's Cafe on Stage 8, but the intricate clockwork that matched actors, scripts, stages, and sets had been thrown off because Irving Rapper was two weeks behind schedule on Now, Voyager. Claude Rains didn't finish his role as the wise psychiatrist in Now, Voyager