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January 13, 2013

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”‏

need much introduction, it is the ultimate movie
in the popular imagination about asylum inmates,
people in psychological distress, everyone here 
got Oscars, including the picture, except for the
one who deserved it most, Brad Dourif, who
gives a performance of equal stature, I think,
transcendental, wrenching, and unforgettable
 
of all the entries in this especially fraught field,
the field of mental ill health – see to compare 
for instance the highly honoured, eminently
commendable, but nevertheless imperfect 
Ciff Robertson – Brad Dourif‘s remains to
my mind unparalleled, in my opinion still
untouched, still the most sublimely,
stirringly, incandescent 
 
what do you think 
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
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January 13, 2013

“Charly” / “Awakenings”‏

“Flowers for Algernon“, a book that was
written in 1966, back when I was already
reading everything, was not a book that
I expected could ever be made into a film,
it had been written from the point of view
of a mentally challenged person who’d
been asked to keep a diary of his
progress in an experiment to make him
smarter, eventually seriously smart, the
style therefore follows the infelicities of 
the main character’s misspellings as he 
tries to write proper English  
 
his name is Charly, Charly Gordon 
 
Algernon is the mouse whose promising
treatment Charly would hopefully as
successfully follow 
 
the book is still irresistible, as confirmed
recently again by my mom, who couldn’t
put it down 
 
 
two years later the  movie was made, to
my delight, of course, and surprise,
called, whatever for, instead of “Flowers
 
this one’s therefore for you, Mom
   
 
that year’s Oscar went to the man who
played the lead role, Cliff Robertson
   
  
“Awakenings“, with Robert De Niro playing
a parallel role in the fictionalized true story
of an essentially, however improbably, 
identical case, has Robin Williams playing
Oliver Sacks, who co-wrote the script, and
has also fully acknowledged himself as the 
doctor in the touched-up representation 
 
but more significantly Oliver Sacks is a
very highly regarded scientist for his
penetrating work in especially neurology,
though his writings veer easily towards
more philosophical speculation, as does,
for instance, also the work of Freud  
on that interdisciplinary account
 
Oliver Sacks most famously wrote “The
 
 
the science in “Flowers for Algernon“, or
“Charly“, a fiction, has become with
“Awakenings“,  it appears, fact 
 
well be I’ll flummoxed 
  
 
Robert De Niro didn’t get the Oscar for
that year’s counterpart Charly Gordon
incidentally, to still my dismay,
dissatisfaction and astonishment  
 
what do you think
 
 
Richard

 

 
 
 
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January 9, 2013

poetry without words

this little tyke and his dog are right out of
irresistibly, in either case, engaging
 
the music however, instead of the completely
unrelated rock song clanging away here,
should’ve been the much more apt
“Pastorale” Sonata of Beethoven, I think, 
which catches to my mind entirely the
innocent, carefree, effervescent and
unadulterated spirit of the the tyke, of any
man or woman about to discover the world,
any world, no matter how young or old we,
any of us, are 
 
 
wishing you only ever wonders
 
Richard  
 
psst: this is also an apology for a particularly
          lax text in my last instalment, wherein
          I should’ve made the “Pastorale” 
          particularly shine but didn’t, here I
          think I make amends, you might
          actually, and incontrovertibly
          profitably, listen

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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January 7, 2013

Beethoven – “Pastorale” Sonata, no 15, opus 28‏

from the very beginning of this musical series I’ve
been wanting, looking forward to, highlighting
somewhere, somehow, this incandescent piece
by Beethoven, but hadn’t yet found either a
complete nor, more significantly, a worthy
interpretation, though one briefly came and
went in a blazing virtual, as it were, transit, that
would’ve been perfect, and may now be never 
seen again, o, vast, too vast, eternity   
 
here Konstantin Semilakovs, not even a finalist at
Competition last September, 2012, the competition
must’ve been severely tough, plays an enchanted
rendition 
 
Beethoven is at the height of his euphoria here,
after his 7th sonata, his opus 10, no 3, he’d
followed through with his still resounding 8th, 
his“Pathétique“, opus 13, through several
significant others to just before this one his
 
the “Pastorale“, his opus 28 – “pastorale”,
incidentally, usually retains the German spelling,
for the feminine word in German “Sonate”, and
it is generally pronounced, with an enunciated
“e”, that way – is in all of music the piece I find
the most enchanting, I call it my “Johnny
Appleseed” sonata for its youth, freshness,
exhilaration, sense of adventure, infinite and
effervescent possibility, there isn’t a single
adagio here, note, just, at the very slowest,
an andante, a normal walk, there’s too much
wonder and fascination in the music to slow 
anything here down
 
you’ll note that Beethoven doesn’t too much
sway from the rigours of Classical structure,
the beat doesn’t significantly, nor even
infinitesimally much alter, though there are
some idiosyncratic Romantic liberties taken,
not an uncommon occurrence, by the interpreter,
fully redeemed however by his magical, meticulous 
rendition
 
nor does Beethoven touch tonality, we remain
always in the same key, each according to its
own movement
 
repetition is also there in spades, but you get
there only after he’s taken you through a veritable
rabbit hole, like Alice, and you don’t even know
where you are, where you started, but there you
are again suddenly, to your enchanted wonder,
but already he’s starting you up again for another
apparently iteration, o joy, o even ecstasy  
 
 
note intimations of Prokofiev already a century
earlier in the third movement, the sprightly
“scherzo (allegro assai)”, note the eccentricity
of the syncopation, already the future is here,
spreading its nascent but fully burgeoning
wings into even our very own 21st Century,
decisively, we will not hang Beethoven out
to dry, that’d be like losing Shakespeare
     
 
the elements of Classicism, to summarize, 
remain strong with Beethoven, even essential
to his conception of music, the profound
difference is with the impact of the piano,
soft, loud, the hold petal, his use of volume,
his use of, from solemn to effervescent, pace 
 
with these opportune tools he changed the
face of music, channeling through them his
profound, his supremely inspired, genius,
becoming along the way and incontestibly
the Homer, the highest priest and most
revered elder, of Western music, to this very
day unchallenged, still not outshone, nor
even ever yet matched, just listen 
 
 
Richard   
 
psst: you might want to compare this Beethoven  
           with Schubert’s  “Wanderer” Fantasy, for
           their itinerary spirit
 
 
 
 
 
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January 5, 2013

Brice Maiurro/John Donne on bugs‏

who says poetry isn’t supposed to be delightful,
poetry is delightful, exhilarating, inspirational,
the good stuff is 
 
I couldn’t resist sending again some utterly
ingenious Brice Maiurro, an absolute wunderkind
in my estimation, consistently artful and unfailingly
entertaining, topical, terse and dependably
insightful ever 
 
John Donne seemed an obvious comparison to me
here 
 
Brice Maiurro sees no reason not to swat the fly
apart from their equally existential, and essentially
blameless each, journey
 
John Donne is after the girl, the fly is the conjunction
of their blood, “suck’d” from each, and therefore
sacred, a “marriage temple”, he calls it, though she
remains apparently unimpressed
 
literary history however was, and is, and I, for at least
one, had never forgotten it, him  
 
nor probably them
 
thanks Brice, thanks John   
 
 
Richard  
 
                       ____________________
  
 
 

1.

as i watched
this fly
land on the beer
on my dresser
he clasped his hands
together

this fly
prays more than
i do

2.

he swarms
around my head
and near my ears
as my blood boils
and i think about
murder

he just wants
attention

he just wants
to be seen
and heard
and loved

3.

how come
i never
encounter a fly
when other people
are around?

4.

this fly moves
in a severely unorthodox way
zig-zagging
and writing through the
stale air

either he governs
his own motion
or something else does

he lands
just to take off again
he goes
to the same place
twice

there is a method
to his madness
i don’t know what

what keeps him
doing the
same quaint thing
over
and again?

5.

if i swat at him
recklessly
i will never kill him
i have to watch him

i have to understand him
at least a little
if i want to absolve him
of his horrid fly life

(is it horrid?
i can’t fly.)

he grows to trust me
it feels like:

he lands on my bed
then the fabric
of my pajamas
then my knee
then my bare chest

6.

after i killed him
i lifted my pillow
where i found him dead

i picked up his lifeless corpse
and his legs moved
pain
i euthanized him
from the suffering i began
and set him outside
of my window

i’m not cut out for this

life is so big
and i’m flying desperately
in chaotic patterns
landing in the same spot
over and again

 
              Brice Maiurro  
 
            ______________________
 
 
 
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
     Yet this enjoys before it woo,
     And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
     And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
    Though use make you apt to kill me,
     Let not to that self-murder added be,
     And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
    ‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
    Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee 

 
 
                                                John Donne  (1572-1631) 
 
 
 
 
 
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January 5, 2013

“Paths of Glory”‏

hot on the heels of “Sergeant York” here’s
another war story, of war movies the one
that has left of all of them with me the most
indelible impression, Stanley Kubrick‘s 
searing “Paths of Glory”
 
incongruities exist, Kirk Douglas plays the
French Corporal Dax, not sounding at all like
a Frenchman but like the American voice of
reason back when such a position held, nor
do most of the other players, apart from,
among especially the military leads, more
formal, aristocratic, which is to say, viable
accents
 
but these inefficiencies soon cede to the
power of a compelling story, all consistently
thickening drama, to the very inexorable end
 
some situations are heightened of course
for the sake of tension, but this is a completely
valid metaphorical device of fiction, I argue, for
the sake of a more profound truth, reality would
be too fraught with its own not as readily 
scrutable inconsistencies and conundrums 
 
the tale is as involving, incidentally, as a
Beethoven sonata, with even its own
incandescent coda, a short musical epilogue,
that will leave you blubbering, a scene of such
subtlety and vision, poetry and power, it has 
remained personally etched forever on my
however maybe too impressionable heart 
 
you’ll need, I think, some Kleenex
 
Kubrick even married his leading lady,
remaining together with her till ’99, the
year of his surely greatly grieved demise
 
 
interiors incidentally by Fragonard,
exteriors by the ravages of war 
 
 
Richard
 
psst: where have we heard about
           courts-martial lately
 
 
 
 
 
 
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January 3, 2013

“Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs”‏

enchanted movie for children of all ages, that
means especially you, Manolito, that means
especially you, Aidan
 
you might however notice, in a more analytical
vein, the introduction of German Expressionism
already in more popular culture, Nolde, Kirchner,
even some Edvard Munch, the Norwegian, in the
bold, garish colours that expressed horror and
perversion for them following the First World War,
and did the same for Walt Disney later if you’ll
consider the evil queen’s mirror and mask, or
van Gogh branches in the threatening forest, flat
surfaces, notably on faces for instance, touched
with only daubs of colour for only perfunctory
shading and character, prefiguring incidentally,
Andy Warhol‘s Pop Art
 
artists talk to each other
 
  
musical atonalities, also, show up, to attest to
modernity, in the music tooted out by the pipe
organ, delivering ornery pipes and a climactic
cuckoo who can only emit a shrill, discordant 
screech, we can thank especially Prokofiev,
the popinjay among the atonalists, for that,
with necessary nods to, for their more
theoretical groundwork, the more exacting
Stravinsky and the too dour, not to mention
for many too dire, Schoenberg  
 
Walt Disney was introducing modern art not so
surreptitiously at all to the larger popular culture,
acclimatizing children especially to the new
upended and revolutionizing art, crayons at
the behest of individuality 
 
 
you’ll also find interesting that Snow White 
succumbs to an apple, much like Mother Eve, 
both of whom are absolved, it’s worth pointing 
out, by nothing other than transcendental,
transformational, regenerative and ever
inspirational, Love
 
think about it  
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
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January 1, 2013

“Sergeant York”

to my dismay when I turned to “Sergeant York“
thinking it’d be a short and hopefully sweet 
movie, clocking in at only one hour fourteen,
I’d read, according to the bottom time bar, I’d
only got the first part of the movie I found out, 
where he grows up in the Ozarks, or somewhere
like it, or is it like them, a stretch of film I found
essentially corny, but for Gary Cooper, who is 
consistently impeccable as a principled hillbilly,
and entirely worth watching 
 
but I only turned to the second part cause a 
change of setting, I thought, might hold more
promise, and indeed it did
 
it is however a lesson in how America developed 
its devotion to guns, it seems an early actual
textbook declaration of it, shot through with the
sounds of celestial strings, you’ll note, when the
commander expounds on its philosophical basis,
with instead of a Bible in hand a book called “The
History of the United States”, for maximum moral
suasion  
 
Sergeant York needs to accommodate his pacifist
stance, as delivered by the Bible and his Lord,
to the new paradigm of patriotism, national
defence, which calls of course for killing, in a
rousing call to arms his superior speaks of the
new ideal of freedom, which is worth, in his
impassioned dialectical exposition, dying for, 
in contrast to the traditional, more fraternal,
less annihilating, Word of God 
 
he is given 10 days leave to sort out his objections,
which may as well have been forty days and forty
nights, with next to no food and water on even a
very mountain, much like Moses on Mount Sinai,
to receive his spiritual enlightenment, trumpets
blow, lightning crashes, Biblical parallels rebound 
like echoing thunder
 
 
the movie came out in ’41, I suspect it was made
in view of marching America into the Second World
War, they didn’t commit to Europe until ’42
 
 
the battle scenes are worthy of “Saving Private Ryan” 
 
Sergeant York bumps up against New York, like
the Beverly Hillbillies later hit Los Angeles 
 
Gary Cooper doesn’t miss a single beat on his
way to his fully earned Oscar
 
 
Alvin C. York, the actual war hero, had insisted,
incidentally, that no one but Gary Cooper should
play his part, had had it written specifically and 
incontrovertibly in his contract, Alvin must’ve
known something
 
since Gary Cooper is no longer around to play
my part I’d now let no one other than Joseph  
 
 
         “Sergeant York”, part 1
 
 
 
enjoy
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
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January 1, 2013

“A TOAST” – Brice Maiurro‏

though I’ve tried to restrain myself from too
effusive appreciation of this inspired poet,
again tonight, a not especially eventful
though completely pleasant New Year’s
Eve night, watchIng the effervescent
movie, “Charade“, with the ebullient
Audrey Hepburn and the equally suave
and captivating Cary Grant, at my mom’s,
inadvertently, a lesson in new, incidentally,
media savvy, foregoing antiquated television
for entertainment from her computer, I got
back home to the following Internet alert 
from evidently my presently favourite poet 
 
how could I wish anyone upon reading it, I
thought, a better New Year
 
I cede therefore to this supremely articulate
poet, who’s taken the time and his gift to
fashion a wish that I couldn’t’ve, nor had I,
articulated any better, had I found, I’m
sure, so instigating and grand a spirit
 
I had to pass it along
 
 
Richard  
 
                 _________________                     
 
 
 
lift up your spirits!
to this cataclysmic evening!
this parade!
of howling wolves! and monkeys!
to the altered perspectives!
of angels!
and their subjective
paradise!
 
let our warped worlds come together!
like pangea in reverse!
  
let all religions reside within us all!
and all around us!
 
this is my wish for you.
and all of you.
 
let us toast!
to the fact our irises
are all different colors!
and our pupils are
all
the
same!
 
let’s get lost!
in the rambunctious sound
of
actual
reality!
 
and remind our souls
that love
is not just romance:
it is
every breath
the flowers give us
and each one
we return to them!
 
parks
that are dead
in winter
and alive
with lush green grass
and wide-
eyed people
in summers!
 
let’s toast!
 
to the smell of rain!
to the taste of laughter!
forever! tonight!
and ever after!
 
 
           Brice Maiurro
 
 
 
 
 
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December 30, 2012

Barbara Stanwyck/Gary Cooper‏ – “Ball of Fire”

Barbara Stanwyck has never been for me
a favourite, more testosterone mostly than
her leading men, but when a cousin asked
about a New Year’s Eve gift recommendation
for his wife, for whom she is a favourite, how
could I resist 
 
this perfect little treasure, “Ball of Fire“, is
what I found, with Gary Cooper no less, who’s
always had testerone enough indeed for
everybody, even as an academic and
milquetoast grammarian
 
 she is a gangster’s moll  
 
the script is scintillating, he corrects someone’s
split infintives, not once but several times, how
could I not love it 
 
she was nominated for an Oscar in what appears
to have been, for its display of female icons, a tight
year, but for this movie Gary Cooper wasn’t even
mentioned  
 
he won the Oscar that year instead for “Sergeant
York“, indisputably probably deserving it 
 
 
incidentally, “Ball of Fire“ is a riff on “Snow White 
and the Seven Dwarfs“, these reorganizations in
art are not uncommon nor unusual, fairy tales and
Biblical references for instance resound always
especially profoundly in reinvented updates
 
here Prince Charming is already living with the
dwarves, Snow White is at the very least scarlet,
but it all ends up the same, of course, utterly ever
charming 
 
 
have a happy, and prosperous, new year 
 
Richard
 
 
 
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