Classic Cinema, 1946 - 1976

SPOILER ALERT
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

It all started way back in early November 2022 when Gerry and I were watching The Big Sleep, with all those dark night driving sequences, leading up to an eerie, dreary mansion. Something about the droll way that the butler greets Bogart in the opening scene rang a bell in my brain. What other movie had we watched recently that began with a similar scary driving scene and a wacky butler?

How hard could it be to remember the name of an old black and white movie that begins with a man driving over a rickety wooden bridge to a big old house where he is staying for a house party / dinner party? Sadly my memory was embarrassingly hazy! I could recall neither the stars, nor the crime, nor any further details that might narrow down the possibilities.

All I could come up with were some behind - the - scene subplots involving cooking in the kitchen, or hiding in there, or something like that. Or maybe the host of the party decides to some of the cooking. There is definitely one of those scenes, like in an Agatha Christie, where all the characters are sitting around the dinner table questioning each other."

I called on my movie experts, Steven LaVigne and Victoria Amador, who wrote back with their hunches. Perhaps I was thinking of Crimes at the Dark House (1940) or Dead of Night (1945). These are good movies to know about, and I appreciated Steven's connections:

1. I haven't seen Dead of Night for a long time. I keep mixing it up with Dead of Winter starring Mary Steenburgen and Roddy McDowell. That's not the movie you're looking for, though; it's in color from 1987.

2. Crimes at the Dark House (1940), starring Tod Slaughter, was originally titled The Woman in White because it was loosely based on the 1860 Wilkie Collins novel The Woman in White, which was later made into a movie of the same name, in 1948.

However, neither one of these titles rang exactly the right bell. The plot summaries didn't quite match up with my memory, despite containing winding roads, dark and stormy nights, haunted houses. Of course, a lot of classic thrillers contain all / most of those elements; so I definitely needed to provide more information. Or better yet, we needed a good coincidence!

A few weeks later, I was flipping through my journal from the year before, and there it was: Murder By Death. I knew right away, that was it! Funny, it was not old, after all, as I had been incorrectly remembering, but a 1976 spoof with guest appearances by Truman Capote and Peter Falk! Mystery solved at last! Now it made sense why each of the other movies seemed similar but not quite right -- because Murder By Death includes motifs from all of them! As Steven sums up, the "problem with Murder by Death was that after the characters are introduced, the script doesn't really go anywhere. Same with Clue. They should both be much cleverer than they are."

Agreed! All the effort is in the elaborate set - up. Yet, you never know what will start you off on a scholarly path. After all the work I did (with a little help from my friends!) to retrace my viewing steps and retrieve Murder By Death from my memory bank, it has become a show that I will not soon forget. Nor will I get it confused with The Big Sleep!

From this wild goose chase, Gerry and I learned that we need to keep a movie list. We've been watching so many cinematic treasures that we've missed over the years, or forgotten about -- old black and whites, film noirs, box - office hits of yore, whodunits, musicals, holiday favorites. It would be a shame to forget the specifics, as we wander nightly from genre to genre.

We also owe our seemingly random but somewhat intentional viewing of American classics to this incredibly informative World War II documentary:

Five Came Back ~ on Netflix
exploring the war-related works
-- and continued popular cinema --
of John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston,
Frank Capra, and George Stevens

and to the Facebook page: The Name is Archer,
a gold mine of legend, lore, references,
connections, and literary allusions.

***************

So, for now -- with a promise of more to come --
here is our once and future film survey,
stretching from 1946 -- the year of The Big Sleep,
to 1976 -- the year of Murder By Death:
1946 May 2
The Postman Always Rings Twice ~ Lana Turner
[and 1981 ~ Jessica Lang & Jack Nicholson]

1946 May 24
Dressed to Kill ~ Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes
[no connection to the 1980 film with Michael Caine & Angie Dickinson;
in fact, the title doesn't really fit either movie]

1946 August 15
Notorious ~ Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Claude Rains

1946 August 30
The Killers ~ Ava Gardner & Burt Lancaster

1946 August 31
The Big Sleep ~ Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall
[& 1976 Murder By Death]

1946 November 1
Stairway to Heaven: A Matter of Life and Death ~ David Niven & Kim Hunter

1946 November 21
Best Years of Our Lives ~ Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright

1946 December 16
Great Expectations ~ John Mills / Anthony Wager, Valerie Hobson / Jean Simmons, Alec Guinness

1946 December 20
It's A Wonderful Life ~ Jimmy Stewart & Donna Reed


Check this very helpful website
for the specific day - month - year of every release:
The Numbers

1947 Out of the Past ~ Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Jane Greer, Virginia Huston [also 1984 Against All Odds ~ Jeff Bridges, Rachel Ward]

1947 The Voice of the Turtle ~ Ronald Reagan & Eleanor Parker

1947 The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ~ Gene Tierney & Rex Harrison

1947 Miracle on 34th Street ~ Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood, Edmund Gwenn


1948 The Winslow Boy ~ Margaret Leighton & Robert Donat
[also 1999 ~ Rebecca Pidgeon & Jeremy Northam]

1948 The Red Shoes ~ Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring

1948 Sorry, Wrong Number ~ Barbara Stanwyck & Burt Lancaster

1948: Road House ~ Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark


1949 Criss Cross ~ Burt Lancaster & Yvonne De Carlo

1949 Twelve O'Clock High ~ Gregory Peck, Dean Jagger, Hugh Marlowe

1949 Shop Around the Corner ~ Jimmy Stewart

1949 The Heiress ~ Olivia de Havilland & Montgomery Clift
[based on Henry James' Washington Square]

1949 The Third Man ~ Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard


1950 In a Lonely Place ~ Humphrey Bogart, Martha Stewart, Gloria Grahame

1950 Sunset Boulevard ~ Gloria Swanson & William Holden

1950 All About Eve ~ Bette Davis, Celeste Holme, Anne Baxter, Marilyn Monroe

1950 Come Back, Little Sheba ~ Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Terry Moore
[also 1977 ~ Laurence Olivier, Joanne Woodward, Carrie Fisher]

More by William Inge (1913-1973)
1953: Picnic
1955: Bus Stop
1957: The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still ~ Michael Rennie & Patricia Neal

1951 A Place in the Sun ~ Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters

1951 Strangers on a Train ~ Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker
[see also The Lady Vanishes 1938, 1979, 2013]


1952 Carrie ~ Jennifer Jones, Laurence Olivier, Eddie Albert
[based on Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie]

1952 Singin' in the Rain ~ Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor

1952 The Thief ~ Ray Milland

1953 The Big Heat Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando


1954 Hobson's Choice ~ Charles Laughton, Brenda de Banzie, Prunella Scales, Daphne Anderson, John Mills, [a treatment of King Lear]

1954 Three Coins in the Fountain ~ Clifton Webb, Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters, Maggie McNamara,

1954 Rear Window ~ Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr

1954 White Christmas ~ Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Dean Jagger


1955 Daddy Long Legs ~ Leslie Caron & Fred Astaire

1955 All That Heaven Allows ~ Rock Hudson & Jane Wyman

1955 To Catch a Thief ~ Cary Grant, Grace Kelly

1955 Not as a Stranger ~ Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, Gloria Grahame


1956 Baby Doll ~ Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach
[based on Tennessee Williams' one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1955).


1957 The Seventh Seal ~ Max von Sydow

1957 An Affair to Remember ~ Deborah Kerr & Cary Grant

1957 Witness for the Prosecution ~ Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton [also 1949, 1982, 2016]

1957 The Three Faces of Eve ~ Joanne Woodward, Lee J. Cobb

1957 Sweet Smell of Success ~ Tony Curtis & Burt Lancaster & Martin Milner

1957 Paths of Glory ~ Kirk Douglas


1958 Marjorie Morningstar ~ Natalie Wood & Gene Kelly & Martin Milner

1958 Touch of Evil ~ Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich

1958 Vertigo ~ Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak

1958 Party Girl ~ Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb


1959 North by Northwest ~ Cary Grant, Eva Maria Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau

1959 Anatomy of a Murder ~ Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick


1960 The Apartment ~ Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, Edie Adams, Hope Holiday

1960 BUtterfield 8 ~ Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher

1960 Psycho ~ Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Janet Leigh

1960 Elmer Gantry ~ Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Shirley Jones, Patti Page, Dean Jagger, Hugh Marlowe

1960 Inherit the Wind ~ Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly, Dick York,

1960 Where the Boys Are ~ Connie Francis, Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton, and Frank Gorshin

1960 Breathless Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo
[French New Wave crime: François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard]


1961 The Children's Hour ~ Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner
[also 1936 These Three]

1962 Light in the Piazza ~ Olivia de Havilland, Rossano Brazzi, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton,

1962 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? ~ Bette Davis & Joan Crawford

1964 Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte ~ Bette Davis & Olivia de Havilland


1963 The Birds ~ Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette


1964 The Night of the Iguana ~ Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner, Sue Lyon

1964 Carol for Another Christmas ~ Eva Marie Saint, Percy Rodriguez, Peter Sellers, Britt Eckland


1965 I Saw What You Did ~ Joan Crawford & John Ireland


1966 Georgy Girl ~ Lynn Redgrave, Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates, James Mason, and Redgrave's mother Rachel Kemps

1966 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ~ Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis


1967 Up the Down Staircase ~ Sandy Dennis, Eileen Heckart, Patrick Bedford, Jean Stapleton

1967 To Sir, with Love ~ Sidney Poitier & Lulu

1968 Targets ~ Boris Karloff


1971 The Last Picture Show ~ Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, and Cybill Shepherd

1973 The Long Goodbye ~ Elliott Gould
[satirical neo-noir; based on 1953 novel by Raymond Chandler]

1974 Chinatown ~ Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway

1975 The Day of the Locust ~ Karen Black, William Atherton, Donald Sutherland
[based on 1939 novel by Nathanael West]

1976 Murder By Death ~ David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith
[Niven played detective Dick Charleston and Smith played his wife Dora Charleston, a little intertextual pun on Nick & Nora from The Thin Man]

1995 Devil in a Blue Dress ~ Denzel Washington, Jennifer Beals
[American neo-noir set in late 1940s]


Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, February 14th ~ More Classic Cinema, 1924 - 1945

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Choose Dearests, Choose

GEMS FOREVER
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

As a child, looking through my parents' album collection
I was always drawn to this treasure chest: Gems Forever!

"1962 - Boise"
That's my mom's handwriting, perhaps
when she bought the album for my dad.

I was only 4 at the time, but I can remember her
wearing the sandstone jewelry when we lived in Idaho.

The sparkly set was added a few years later,
when we lived in Neosho and I was 8 or 9.

Still in their original box;
it says "Priscilla" on the inside & "Floyd's" on the outside.

My mother's necklaces make me think of Virginia Woolf's lovely description in To the Lighthouse of the children rummaging around in Mrs. Ramsay's jewelry box:

"And if Rose liked . . . she might choose which jewels she was to wear.

" . . .Jasper offered her an opal necklace; Rose a gold necklace. Which looked best against her black dress? Which did indeed, said Mrs. Ramsay absent-mindedly . . . And then, while the children rummaged among her things . . .

"But which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case open. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace, which Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her amethysts?

" 'Choose, dearests, choose,' " she said, hoping that they would make haste.

"But she let them take their time to choose: she let Rose, particularly, take up this and then that, and hold her jewels against the black dress, for this little ceremony of choosing jewels, which was gone through every night, was what Rose liked best, she knew. She had some hidden reason of her own for attaching great importance to this choosing what her mother was to wear. What was the reason, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, standing still to let her clasp the necklace she had chosen, divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that one had for one's mother at Rose's age. Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs. Ramsay thought, it made one sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return; and what Rose felt was quite out of proportion to anything she actually was. And Rose would grow up; and Rose would suffer, she supposed, with these deep feelings, and she said she was ready now, and they would go down, and Jasper, because he was the gentleman, should give her his arm, and Rose, as she was the lady, should carry her handkerchief (she gave her the handkerchief), and what else? oh, yes, it might be cold: a shawl. Choose me a shawl, she said, for that would please Rose, who was bound to suffer so."

(120 - 123, emphasis added)
[And thanks to my friend and fellow scholar
Victoria Amador for sharing my reading of this passage]

[Read more about Virginia Woolf:
Fortnightly ~ Quotidian ~ Kitti's List]

***************

Additional Connections

In "The Diamond Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant,
Mme. Jeanne Forestier says to Mme. Mathilde Loisel:
"Choose, my dear."

In "Wild Montana Skies"
John Denver & Emmylou Harris
sing of the conflicted, contemplative character who
was born with the blessing / curse of deep feeling and
" . . . never knew the answers
that would make an easy way . . . "
[kind of like "Rose, who was bound to suffer so"]

In one of my 4th - grade favorites,
Ginnie and the Mystery Doll by Catherine Woolley,
Ginnie and Geneva follow the trail of a long - lost antique doll,
a recently painted portrait of the doll, a red Jaguar,
and -- a missing jewel! -- a conch pearl.

I took a couple of hours to re-read this childhood classic, and was touched by Ginnie's similarity to Rose:

"Ginnie gave a sad little sigh. This was the best, the most beautiful part of the day. The air felt cool when she sat up, but the sand still held the day's warmth and the wind had dropped. A path of molten gold led straight across the silken water to the setting sun." (45)

"The summer days were slipping along now. Ginnie treasured every one. As the summer had advanced, a new world had come into being for her -- the world at the edge of the sea. . . . So, each new day unfolded its own lovely pattern. Ginnie hugged every one to her heart." (83, 85)

As with Rose, Ginnie "loved anything resembling a story" but every now and again she had "the strange sensation [of being] alone in a hostile world" (111, 117).

Need I say it? Bound to suffer so.

Previous Fortnightly Posts in this series
Re: Jewel, Rainbow, Splendor
Heirloom Jewelry
Diamond Studs Are Forever
AND MORE

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Mantovani Christmas
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Only Collect a Few (Imprints #3)

SAND & CONCRETE
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thanks to my friend Jan Donley
for this gift from the sea.

Excerpts from Gift from the Sea (1955)
by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 – 2001)

“One never knows what chance treasures . . . may turn up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind . . . The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea” (16 - 17).

“I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere" (32).

“The one-and-only moments are justified. The return to them, even if temporarily, is valid. The moment over the marmalade and muffins is valid; the moment feeding the child at the breast is valid; the moment racing with him at the beach is valid. Finding shells together, polishing chestnuts, sharing one’s treasures: all these moments of together-aloneness are valid, but not permanent” (73).

“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. One moon shell is more impressive than three. There is only one moon in the sky” (114).

March 2016 ~ Amelia Island

*******************
I have long been a fan of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, especially Bring Me A Unicorn but not until a recent re-reading of Gift from the Sea, did I fully appreciate how ahead of her time she was on issues such as environmentalism, de-cluttering, mindfulness, and self - care. For all her gentlness, only a person with a built in shit detector could pinpoint the awesome truth that "The most exhausting thing in life . . . is being insincere." We have all felt it; but, on our behalf, Lindbergh declares it.

Likewise, she declares for personal time and space: "remaining whole in the midst of the distractions of life," "practicing the art of solitude," "being inwardly attentive." These contemplative disciplines -- "even day - dreaming" -- she says, are so rare as to be revolutionary (29, 41, 42, 48, 56 - 57). And this was decades before Facebook and social media started gnawing away at our attention spans.

The ever - elusive work - life balance is prominent on Lindbergh's agenda: "The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls. . . this constant tangle of household chores, errands, and fragments of human relationships . . . endless distractions, always at hand -- unnecessary errands, compulsive duties, social niceties . . . to little purpose" (29, 47 - 48). Using the imagery of seashells, Lindbergh offers suggestions for maintaing a creative identity alongside the whorling omnipresence of housekeeping and childcare and making one's way in the world.

As staunchly as Virginia Woolf (51, 54), Lindbergh advocates for a room of one's own. Or, if not a room, at least an hour to oneself:

“It is a difficult lesson to learn today -- to leave one's friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour or a day or a week. . . .

The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone.

How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. . . . Actually these are among the most important times in one's life -- when one is alone” (42, 49 - 50).

These gifts of introspection came to Lindbergh at the beach. Yet, never fear, such gifts are also widely available on dry land, even upon mundane concrete . . .
August 2017 ~ North Carolina

June 2020 ~ Indiana

April 2021 ~ Indiana

August 2021 ~ South Carolina

"I couldn't even walk head up . . . for fear
of missing something precious at my feet." (114)

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Imprints"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ "More Gifts From the Sea"
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Who's Afraid? Fear Not!

A WRITER, ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONOUS
"Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully
in what is commonly thought big than
in what is commonly thought small. . . .
Down, down into the midst of ordinary things."

1902 & 1927


Rest in Peace Virginia Woolf:
25 January 1882 ~ 28 March 1941

"I am now galloping over Mrs. Dalloway. . . . The reviewers will say that it is disjointed because of the mad scenes not connecting with the Dalloway scenes. And I suppose there is some superficial glittery writing. But is it 'unreal'? Is it mere accomplishment? I think not. . . . it seems to leave me plunged deep in the richest strata of my mind. I can write and write and write now: the happiest feeling in the world." ~ Virginia Woolf, December 13, 1924

**********************

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!

Shakespeare
from Cymbeline (Act IV, Scene 2, 2656 - 2689)

The opening lines of this Shakespearean song are quoted
several times by Clarissa Dalloway in Woolf's novel:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages. (13)

"Fear no more," said Clarissa.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun. (44)

. . . the world seems to be saying "that is all" more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, That is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking.” (59)

. . . she repeated and the words came to her,
Fear no more the heat of the sun.
She must go back to them. But what an extraordinary night. (283)

Google Doodle on Woolf's 136th Birthday

**********************

Sometimes the connections are all about connections.

Armin van Buuren:
"Everyone’s connected but no one is connecting."
from the song: "Alone"

Joan Didion:
"In this light, all narrative was sentimental. In this light
all connections were equally meaningful and equally senseless."
from the essay: The White Album

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"If there's the slightest connection,
it's worth thinking about."
from the novel Player Piano

Donna Tartt:
"What held me fast . . . was the element of chance:
random disasters . . . converging on the same unseen point . . .
You could study the connections for years and never work it out
-- it was all about things coming together, things falling apart,
time warp . . . a way of seeing things twice, or more than twice.
. . . a field awareness of unseen patterns . . . ."(305)

"To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint.
Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then
again. . . maybe I see a pattern because it's there." (768)
from the novel The Goldfinch

Annie Barrows
"In books . . . things were connected; people did something
and then something else happened because of that.
I could understand them. But outside, here in the real world,
things seemed to happen for no reason that I could see.
Maybe there was no reason." (374)

"Did most girls my age feel the way I did, as if the people
I thought I knew had turned out to have a thousand little tunnels*
leading away from the face they showed the world? . . .
The buried parts, now, they were fascinating but ominous, too." (128)
from the novel The Truth According to Us

Virginia Woolf:
"I should say a good deal about The Hours [later entitled Mrs. Dalloway]
and my discovery: how I dig out beautiful caves* behind my characters:
I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humor, depth.
The idea is that the caves shall connect
and each come to daylight at the present moment."
from A Writer's Diary
~ Thursday, August 30, 1923 ~

*I'm also seeing a connection here between Woolf's "beautiful caves"
and Barrows' "thousand little tunnels . . . fascinating but ominous"!

**********************

The previous year, Woolf had written:

"Mrs. Dalloway has branched into a book;
and I adumbrate here a study of insanity and suicide;
the world seen by the sane and the insane side by side
-- something like that. Septimus Smith? is that a good name?"
~ Saturday, October 14, 1922 ~

And in 1998, film critic Jack Kroll wrote:

Mrs.Dalloway's day is climaxed by her party, Smith's by his suicide. But these contrasting events are two parts of a symbolic whole, Virginia Woolf herself. Mrs. Dalloway is a Woolf without the genius, while Smith's fate prefigures the troubled Woolf's own suicide in 1941 [on March 28th]. In her notebook Woolf wrote, 'Mrs. D seeing the truth. SS seeing the insane truth.'"

from "Down in the Upper Crust:
Virginia Woolf's Landmark Novel Dazzles on Screen"
in Newsweek, March 2, 1998

**********************

In conclusion, only last month I was dismayed to find this trivializing assessment (an opinion I suppose shared by many) of Clarissa Dalloway's immersion into the details of one perhaps ordinary yet fateful day. In a book about teaching that I otherwise liked very much, Heather Kirn Lanier writes:

"In college, I'd spent my years studying the narrative stances of Virginia Woolf, appreciating the relative plotlessness of Mrs. Dalloway a book in which, let's face it, not much happens."

Au contraire! For Woolf's characters, it is a day filled with grief, intropsection, tension; and enlarged understanding. Oh dear. One does not throw a party -- nor encounter death in the midst of that party -- everyday. Still, though, I was touched to read that Kirn Lanier's students mistook her black and white postcard of Virginia Woolf to be "some great - grandmother of mine" (47, 77).

Virginia ~ Woolfpack
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading ~ "Makin' a list, checking' it twice . . ."
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Robert Burns, The Man's the Gold

SCOTTISH PLAIDS, ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
From Find a Tartan ~ Top: McCartney Day / McCartney Night ~
Bottom: Carrick Day / Carrick Hunting
Don't worry, I realize that "Carrick" is not the same as "Carriker"
and that aside from some of the dark classic plaids, such as
Black Watch, the rest are latter day tourist inventions --
but still, they are fun, right? And mostly harmless!
If you want to see a lot of Scottish plaid, in the form of elaborate kilts and scarves, then you might want to attend a Robert Burns Birthday Dinner, which is what Gerry and I did last night, along with our friends Jack and Leta. These events are held annually throughout the UK and USA around this time of year in honor of the favored and favorite Scottish poet, who was born in 1759 on 25 January (British novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf was born on the same day, 123 years later: 25 January 1882). Sadly, Burns died young on 21 July 1796.

The 259th birthday celebration of Burns' birthday that we attended -- our first time ever! -- was being hosted for the 35th time by ~

The 42nd Royal Highlanders of Lafayette, Indiana
Band of Music ~ Bagpipes, Fifes and Drums

My favorite lines from Burns have always been the last two stanzas from his poem To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough (1785). During my teaching years, I would print these verses at the conclusion of every syllabus, not only as a way of introducing the Scottish English dialect of Robert Burns but also as a reminder to the students that, control being but an illusion, we were likely to deviate from the syllabus at any time:

But, Mousie, thou art
no thy lane, [not alone]
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley, [go oft astray]
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my eye
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear! (1785)

At the Burns Supper, however, the tone was lighter and more joyful. Never mind the existential angst of all creatures great and small! Instead, the opening poem is an ode to a haggis. Should you be unfamiliar with this unusually named menu item, think of a cross between a meatloaf and a pâté. Not necessarily your typical subject of introspective poetry, but here goes:

Address to the Haggis [click title for original Scots version]

All hail your honest rounded face
Great chieftain of the pudding race;
Above them all you take your place,
Beef, tripe, or lamb:
You're worthy of a grace
As long as my arm.

The groaning trencher there you fill,
Your sides are like a distant hill
Your pin would help to mend a mill,
In time of need,
While through your pores the dews distil,
Like amber bead.

His knife the rustic goodman wipes,
To cut you through with all his might,
Revealing your gushing entrails bright,
Like any ditch;
And then, what a glorious sight,
Warm, welcome, rich.

Then plate for plate they stretch and strive,
Devil take the hindmost, on they drive,
Till all the bloated stomachs by and by,
Are tight as drums.
The rustic goodman with a sigh,
His thanks he hums.

Let them that o'er his French ragout,
Or hotchpotch fit only for a sow,
Or fricassee that'll make you spew,
And with no wonder;
Look down with sneering scornful view,
On such a dinner.

Poor devil, see him eat his trash,
As feckless as a withered rush,
His spindly legs and good whip-lash,
His little feet
Through floods or over fields to dash,
O how unfit.

But, mark the rustic, haggis-fed;
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Grasp in his ample hands a flail
He'll make it whistle,
Stout legs and arms that never fail,
Proud as the thistle.

You powers that make mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill of fare.
Old Scotland wants no stinking ware,
That slops in dishes;
But if you grant her grateful prayer,
Give her a haggis (1786)

According to tradition, the dinner continues with more feasting, more poetry, and various other readings. The conventional "Toast to the Lassies" and "Toast to the Laddies" may vary from venue to venue, depending on who has been nominated to deliver the address. I like the idea of choosing a poem by Burns to fill these slots on the program. How could you go wrong with this tender tribute, especially when sung by Andreas Scholl:

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile. (1794)

The next poem, a fitting toast for lads and lasses alike, was written during the French Revolution and exemplifies the rising tide of democracy that informed the poetry of the time. Burns' words continue to inspire and express what we all crave -- to be known for our own worth:

A Man's A Man For A' That [click title for original Scots version]

Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and all that?
The coward slave, we pass him by -
We dare be poor for all that!
For all that, and all that,
Our toils obscure, and all that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gold for all that.

What though on homely fare we dine,
Wear rough grey tweed, and all that?
Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine -
A man is a man for all that.
For all that, and all that,
Their tinsel show, and all that,
The honest man, though ever so poor,
Is king of men for all that.

You see that fellow called 'a lord',
Who struts, and stares, and all that?
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He is but a dolt for all that.
For all that, and all that,
His ribboned, star, and all that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at all that.

A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and all that!
But an honest man is above his might -
Good faith, he must not fault that
For all that, and all that,
Their dignities, and all that,
The pith of sense and pride of worth
Are higher rank than all that.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth over all the earth
Shall take the prize and all that!
For all that, and all that,
It is coming yet for all that,
That man to man the world over
Shall brothers be for all that. (1795)

It's only right that an evening - long tribute to the enduring legacy of Robert Burns should conclude with a rousing group rendition of his most beloved poem. Anyone who missed out in the early moments of the New Year is granted another chance here at the end of the month to sing -- for old time's sake -- of forgiveness for the past and congenial commitment to a kinder, gentler future:

Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind
Should old acquaintance be forgot
for the days of old lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne
we'll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne.

And surely you'll buy your pint cup
and surely I'll buy mine
we'll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne,

And here's a hand my trusty friend
And put your hand in mine
We'll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne
we'll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne. (1788)

"Jack Frost" on the Garage Floor

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, February 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

What a Wonderful World

A WORLD WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world"

Sung so beautifully by
Louis Armstrong ~ Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole

******************

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half bad
if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling

mortician

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

See also Lucinda Williams: "This Sweet Old World"
and Virginia Woolf: "Oh . . . in the middle of my party, here's death."

******************
Earlier in the year, my esteemed eldest brother Dave suggested the following roundtable discussion for facebook friends and family:

I would like to present you all with a thought game and ask that you consider playing along. Here we go!

Dave: Today, when most people watch cartoons and comedies from the 30's - 50's, they find all manner of things offensive, i.e. portrayal of black people, smoking, how women are viewed and treated and so on. What many forget is that when these films were made, they were the societal norm. No one was particularly horrified or disgusted by the issues I presented.

We of course know when the changes took place, and we really old codgers can even identify specific events or trends that heralded them.

Now, you are surrounded by films, cartoons, comedies, etc. that are entirely normal and acceptable to modern society. That is and always has been the norm.

Last step! Imagine you are now living in your eighth decade and have seen huge changes over your past fifty years. What things will your children, grand and great grand children find repulsive, or disgusting when viewed through the lens of their young perspective. In other words, what are we doing as a society today that will be a thing of shame in the distant future; a shame that you will have to personally "own" by virtue of having lived it?

I wonder if this is a corner of our being that we care to examine?

My cousin Nick got us started:

Nick: I think by then the pendulum will have swung the other way and my great grandchildren and grandchildren will look at the early 21st century with disbelief and humor that we were so overboard with political correctness and kowtowing to the very smallest minority at the expense of the overwhelming majority. I can't imagine what's left for anyone to be offended about.

Maybe some breakthrough in transportation or power will come and that generation will look in horror and disbelief at our use of fossil fuels (which I believe do pollute).

Maybe by then the gay marriage movement will break way to polygamy, and they'll be amazed that (on paper) most people were monogamous.

Hopefully war will be looked on as the absolute final, disgusting choice to solve problems

Definitely I think they'll be disgusted at the amount of our waste, both organic (uneaten food), and inorganic (packaging particularly).

I also think they will be disgusted / amazed at our preoccupation with sex and sexuality; both individual and others, as a person's sexuality becomes as relevant as eye color. By then, not only will people be more accepting of others' sexuality, but minority sexualities, if you will, won't be flaunted and shoved in others' faces.

Bear in mind I live in Thailand and this is how we live here already so I know it's not only possible but also beneficial to society as a whole.

And then my sister Peg:

Peg: Rap music lyrics and current song lyrics in general; hopefully: our reluctance to go back to an active space program; our need for chasing the almighty dollar over spending time with family; our rising health issues with a failure to address the money spent on developing medications which are only band-aids on the problem and not solutions.

And niece - in - law Chantel:

Chantel: I think that we will have rationed food and water and such in the future. I think that the wastefulness of this era will be found obscene in the future.

Next to take the ball and run with it was my
inspiring millennial son Ben McCartney,
featured here in 1991, shortly before his first birthday,
trying to figure out how to make the world a better place!

Ben: This is a fun thought experiment. Thanks for posing it!

I'm going to lump my ideas in to one of two categories. The first are those issues which I think are going to continue to be issues for a long, long time, but will probably look and feel slightly different in 60 years. The second group is things which are going to, I’d guess, have some really stark turning point that makes them looks incredibly different.

Long time issues: gun control, race relations, privacy, and religion.

Gun control. The current policy is obviously broken. The murder rate in the US is just so much higher than literally everywhere else moderately developed that something has to give. But, as much as I’d like it, there’s not going to be a dramatic, overnight change in gun regulations in the US. I can see laws being stricter 80 years from now, maybe gun licenses will be harder to get, maybe people with convictions of violent crime won’t legally be able to buy guns. I can also imagine personal defense technology developing enough over the next century that guns in their current forms will pose less of a threat. Hopefully the 2nd amendment goes the way of legalized slavery and has its federal approval tag removed. But I’m not counting on the founders' f--k-up getting fixed any time soon.

Race relations. Clearly the biggest issue in the United States. Has been since its inception and will be for at least a while longer. The problems run so deep that I’m not even sure what change would look like. Hopefully it’s better in the future than it is now, and I imagine it will be. But change will be slow. Will people 80 years from now look back on 2016 America as a place where the problems between blacks and whites were amazingly bad? Yes, I’m sure they will, as we do now. But I’ve no idea how to go about fixing them in an overnight sort of way.

Privacy. The second biggest issue in the United States. What is the government allowed to know about us? What are they not? When can they search us? When can’t they? Can they see our internet search histories? What about our location at a given time? There will be a tug of war between personal liberty and security. No idea who’s going to have pulled farther over the next 80 years.

Religion. I’m surprised this is still a thing. I don’t really get it. But I’ve decided I’m just missing something. Too many people for too long have been so inspired by their religions that there must be something to it. I guess it’ll still be around in 80 years. But when it finally goes away, whenever that is, people are going to look back and roll their eyes.

Radically change: football, abortion, and driving.

NFL. This is going the way of gladiatorial fights. And it will happen quickly. Not exactly sure when, but the game in its current manifestation is short for this earth. “Wait, people wore what and hit each other how often and how hard? And half of them had dramatic brain injuries? And the majority rich, privileged owners traded and drafted these predominately desperately poor players to compete against each other?”

Abortion. Obviously a hugely divisive issue right now. But I think it will become a non-issue soon. Not because of any change in how readily or effectively people prescribe their moralities, but because of technology. Birth control is going to become so cheap, and so easy, that unintended pregnancy will go away. It really ought to be this way now; but, predominately conservative, obstructionism has kept birth control expensive. Technology will change, though, and birth control become less of a game-time decision (when people are notoriously poor decision makers) and less expensive.

Driving. “Wait, what? People drove these things themselves? But so many people have such bad coordination! How were they allowed to do this? 30,000 people died EVERY YEAR? What happened if people got drunk? What if people fell asleep? Wait, people agreed that they were so bad at this they all pooled money together to give to people who crashed into other things and other people and they DID IT ANYWAY?” Driverless cars are coming. And I can’t wait.

Vaccinations. The measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, and polio. These diseases are devastating. But there’s tons of promising research into these things called vaccinations that make people who get them completely immune. We’re not quite there yet, but I think medical progress will be sufficient to completely eradicate these things and save more than a million lives per year soon.

And I brought up the rear:

Sorry to chime in late; I held back since I didn't think my answers would be a big hit. But everyone else's responses are so inspiring, so I'm going to at least try:

1. Gender Inequity -- is it ever going away? I've been waiting 40 years, and women older than I have been waiting even longer. As radical feminist writer Andrea Dworkin said when asked how she would like to be remembered: "In a museum, when male supremacy is dead. I'd like my work to be an anthropological artifact from an extinct, primitive society." How long is this going to take?

2. War -- is it ever going away? Again, please allow me to quote an expert; this time Ulysses S. Grant, who has been waiting well over a hundred years -- let alone 40 -- for his hoped for result: "Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences." How long is this going to take?

3. Smoking -- is it ever going away? As Dave points out, it is no longer portrayed in children's cartoons; and it was legally eliminated from television advertising in 1971 -- 45 years ago -- and gradually disappeared from most television programming soon after -- but certainly not from movies, where it still retains its falsely glamorized status, and certainly not from real life, despite very well known and highly visible health hazards. 40 years ago, I incorrectly assumed, that anyone older than I who was still smoking would surely quit immediately, and that anyone younger than I would never start. But time has proven me wrong. How long is this going to take?

I'll be in my 8th decade in a mere 12 years and curious to see if much changes between now and then. Maybe it will take another 40 years beyond that, or another 80. Well, there's my three cents worth.

In closing (well, until next time) many thanks --

1. to Nick, who wrote a lengthy response to all of my concerns. I've been meaning to respond properly for months now and promise that I will do so very soon . . . like in time for my next blog post!

and

2. to Dave, who kindly relinquished all copyrights: "Anything I write on Facebook is in the public domain. So, no, I don't mind what you do with them. Question. comment, add content? By all means go ahead." [I hope that includes writing a Blog Post!]

I trust that everyone else quoted above concurs! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and hopes for the future of our wonderful world!

This Cracker / Carriker Barrel Discussion to be continued . . .

IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Thoroughly Modernism

A PLACE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Édouard Manet

******************

Manet's Folies-Bergère was part of Fry's exhibit


as was Cezanne's Great Pine

(click to enlarge & see Item #20, bottom left)
Roger Fry's 1910 Exhibition of Manet and the Post - Impressionists marked a new direction for impressionism, so distinct in fact that Virginia Woolf hailed it as the onset of Modernism:

"And now I will hazard [an] . . . assertion, which is more disputable perhaps, to the effect that on or about December 1910 human character changed. I am not saying that one went out, as one might into a garden, and there saw that a rose had flowered, or that a hen had laid an egg. The change was not sudden and definite like that. But a change there was, nevertheless; and since one must be arbitrary, let us date it about the year 1910. The first signs of it are recorded in the books of Samuel Butler, in The Way of All Flesh in particular; the plays of Bernard Shaw continue to record it. In life one can see the change . . . All human relations have shifted . . . And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of these changes about the year 1910." (4 - 5)

"Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown", 1924

In addition to the 1910 Exhibition, another good place to look for the essence of Modernism is James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. By way of Stephen's theorizing, this novel contains all the major characteristics of Modernism and becomes a kind of textbook dramatization of these tenets. Stephen makes a conscious decision to break away from previously upheld beliefs. Taking an essentially Modernist stance, Stephen follows a spiritual and aesthetic path of complete abandonment and reorientation rather than trying to salvage or maintain the status quo: "His soul was still disquieted and cast down by the dull phenomenon of Dublin" (78).

What makes Stephen Dedalus a Modernist? He resorts to his imagination in a crisis. He triumphs over his enemy through language. He conquers through irony. Portrait is ultimately ironic and irony, which becomes a distinction of the Modernist canon. Even as a child, Stephen employs imagination, language, and irony, envisioning his own death and the disgrace of Wells:

"Wells too would be there but no fellow would look at him. The rector would be there . . . and there would be tall yellow candles . . . And they would carry the coffin out of the chapel slowly and he would be buried in the little graveyard . . . And Wells would be sorry then for what he had done. And the bell would toll slowly.

". . . How beautiful the words were where they said Bury me in the old churchyard! . . . He wanted to cry but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music. The bell! The bell! Farewell! O farewell!"(24 - 25)

What makes Stephen an artist? Because he wants "to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld" (65). He wants to resolve conflict. Take, for example, the discussion of religion, country, and family which arises at the dinner table. The self - evident truth that these three factors or even two of them cannot be reconciled leads to such an unreliable and undesirable state that Stephen is eventually motivated to create a realm of beauty in contrast to the unsavory chaos of reality. Unfortunately, recognition of the conflict is also admission that the problem is unsolvable, that despite moments of ostensible harmony, the world is a fragmented mess:

"How foolish his aim had been! He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and to dam up, by rules of conduct and active interests and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tide within him. Useless. From without as from within the water had flowed over his barriers: their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole . . .

" . . . it wounded him to think that he would never be but a shy guest at the feast of the world's culture and that the monkish learning, in terms of which he was striving to forge out an esthetic philosophy, was held no higher by the age he lived in than the subtle and curious jargons of heraldry and falconry." (98, 180)

In the face of fragmentation and uncertainty, the artist's role in Modernism is to try one solution after the next. In his artistic growth, Stephen experiments with (1) the desire to be his own father, to generate himself out of and into perfect autonomy, reflecting the goal of Modernism that the text creates itself; (2) his sense of order, perceived via integitas, consonantia, and claritas, thus arriving at quidditas; (3) the questions he has set himself, the answers to which explain his aesthetic ("Is a chair finely made tragic or comic? Is the portrait of Mona Lisa good if I desire to see it? Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical, epical or dramatic? If not, why not?"); (4) the need to separate himself from the world and even from his work, "like the God of creation . . . within or behind or beyond or above . . . indifferent"; (5) his reliance on "silence, exile, and cunning" and fearlessness (212, 214, 215, 247):

"You made me confess the fears I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. . . . I will take the risk."

I have always admired Stephen's list and been intrigued by the possibility that his declamation alone is enough to increase his courage and confidence. Whereas T.S. Eliot and Evelyn Waugh show us "fear in a handful of dust," James Joyce portrays fear as a call to action. Although Stephen Dedalus says the opposite, he enumerates the very things he fears the most and, by denouncing, conquers them.

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, August 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

I Will Show You Modernism In A Handful of Dust

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Painting by Leonard Orr ~ Handful of Dust in the Wind
Mimi Allin writes:
"land sky heaped feathered leading discouraging
porcupined lit bloated muffled"
This Fortnightly's connections are all about the Ache of Modernism, the sudden tortured awareness of the unlived life, the life which dared nothing -- or not enough. As Carolyn Heilbrun writes of D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930): " . . . he understood that the mortal risk was not, or was no longer, death; it had become the possibility that life, the lived life, might be evaded." Historical discontinuity, alienation, asocial individualism, existentialism, melancholy -- these were the issues at hand. Horror to horror. Dust to dust.

Unlike the Romantic movement, which can be dated from a specific event -- the publication in 1798 of the Lyrical Ballads, Modernism begins less deliberately (unless you ask Virginia Woolf; more on this next time). There is not an initial document, such as the "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads," which sets forth the tenets of Modernism and heralds a movement to which writers may rally. Instead, one must look in the works themselves to locate the key concepts shaping the tone of the canon. In chronological order, here are a few of my favorites:

Joseph Conrad / Heart of Darkness (1902):
"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, —
he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath —
'The horror! The horror!'" [emphasis added]

Henry James / "The Beast in the Jungle" (1903):
"So he saw it, as we say, in pale horror, while the pieces fitted and fitted. . . . It was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had waited the wait was itself his portion. This the companion of his vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him the chance to baffle his doom. One’s doom, however, was never baffled . . . The escape would have been to love her . . . This horror of waking-- this was knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze." [emphasis added]

E. M. Forster / Howards End (1910):
"Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.” [emphasis added]

T.S. Eliot / The Wasteland (1922):
" . . . I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you:
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. [emphasis added]

Jessamyn West / The Friendly Persuasion (1945):
"He, a live man, to die. He extended his hand, recalling its cunning, marveling at the way stiff, unpliable bones could be so cushioned and strung together as to be capable of music, of grafting a tree, of lifting a foal from it's mother's torn flesh -- and that hand to be dust. And the enemy present . . . He saw objects two ways, now, both as more beautiful and more pitiable: those which would stay, endure beyond men, stones, trees, the moving air, had new beauty, that of their own endurance and of his leaving; but men and women were more pitiable . . . Man's a sizeable hulk reared - up on his wagon seat and pulled about the earth by horses; dead, no more'n a spoonful of dust, not enough, spread thin, to take a small - sized horse track" (147 - 150). [emphasis added]

Jack Schaefer / Shane (1949 novel / 1953 film):
In the iconic closing scene, Shane bids farewell and rides off into the valley, ignoring young Joey's desperate cries of "Shane, come back!"

In his memoir 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal writes of the equally iconic moment in his childhood when none other than the legendary Billie Holiday (who was friends with his father) took him to see Shane at the movie theater. As the movie draws to a close and Shane rides off into the sunset, "Miss Billie whispered in my ear, 'He ain't never coming back'" (48).

Alan Sillitoe / "The Fishing Boat Picture" (1959):
"Then optimism rides out of the darkness like a knight in armour. If you loved her... (of course I bloody-well did)... then you both did the only thing possible if it was to be remembered as love. Now didn't you? Knight in armour goes back into blackness. Yes, I cry, but neither of us did anything about it, and that's the trouble." [emphasis added]

Iris Murdoch / The Black Prince (1973):
"The whole room breathed the flat horror of genuine mortality, dull and spiritless and final . . . (38)
"You understand nothing of -- the horror -- no wonder you can write real books -- you don't see -- the horror -- (224, emphasis added)
"The evening was overcast . . . I could smell dust, as if the quiet tedious streets all around me had dissolved into endless dunes of dust. I thought about this morning and how we had seemed to have all the time in the world. And now there seemed to be no more time. I also thought that if only I had had the wit . . . (285)
I awoke to a grey awful spotty early morning light which made the unfamiliar room present in a ghastly way. The furniture was humped shapelessly about me . . . Everything seemed to be covered with soiled dust sheets. . . . I experienced horror, then memory." (341)

William Stafford / "A Ritual To Read To Each Other"
(1977, or somewhat earlier):

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. [emphasis added]

Kansas / "Dust in the Wind" (1977)
Click to listen:
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes with curiosity
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

Dust Bowl

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, July 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com