From Luis Bunuel’s Last Sigh:
“Later, in 1929, he wrote another short poem I love, and which has never been published:
Cielo azul
Campo amarillo
Monte azul
Campo amarillo
Por la llanura desierta
Va caminando un olivo
Un solo
Olivo.”
I am going to memorize it and love it dearly.
Yes, Frank O’Hara was featured in the last episode of Mad Men, season 2, and that’s how I first heard about him. Recently I acquired “Meditations in an Emergency” collection of poems, and to my delight, found that he’s an exceptionally talented poet. He mixes nuggets of pop culture with vivid images and aptly coiling phrases that project sly, sticky pictures in your head. If you follow the link at the beginning of the post, you will learn a lot more about him, and perhaps, be surprised. Frank O’Hara is not an obscure name in American literature, it is I who’s been an obscure mind in the dark about him! Bonus: he also loved Mayakovsky, and even wrote a poem to him.
Since I’m on a movie bend this week (and generally, too), I’m sharing his “To the Film Industry in Crisis”, below:
Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals
with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants,
nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition
is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you,
promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you
are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry,
it’s you I love!
In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.
And give credit where it’s due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me
how to be bad and not bad rather than good (and has lately availed
herself of this information), not to the Catholic Church
which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment,
not to the American Legion, which hates everybody, but to you,
glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor, amorous Cinemascope,
stretching Vistavision and startling Stereophonic Sound, with all
your heavenly dimensions and reverberations and iconoclasms! To
Richard Barthelmess as the “tol’able” boy barefoot and in pants,
Jeanette MacDonald of the flaming hair and lips and long, long neck,
Sue Carroll as she sits for eternity on the damaged fender of a car
and smiles, Ginger Rogers with her pageboy bob like a sausage
on her shuffling shoulders, peach-melba-voiced Fred Astaire of the feet,
Eric von Stroheim, the seducer of mountain-climbers’ gasping spouses,
the Tarzans, each and every one of you (I cannot bring myself to prefer
Johnny Weissmuller to Lex Barker, I cannot!), Mae West in a furry sled,
her bordello radiance and bland remarks, Rudolph Valentino of the moon,
its crushing passions, and moonlike, too, the gentle Norma Shearer,
Miriam Hopkins dropping her champagne glass off Joel McCrea’s yacht,
and crying into the dappled sea, Clark Gable rescuing Gene Tierney
from Russia and Allan Jones rescuing Kitty Carlisle from Harpo Marx,
Cornel Wilde coughing blood on the piano keys while Merle Oberon berates,
Marilyn Monroe in her little spike heels reeling through Niagara Falls,
Joseph Cotten puzzling and Orson Welles puzzled and Dolores del Rio
eating orchids for lunch and breaking mirrors, Gloria Swanson reclining,
and Jean Harlow reclining and wiggling, and Alice Faye reclining
and wiggling and singing, Myrna Loy being calm and wise, William Powell
in his stunning urbanity, Elizabeth Taylor blossoming, yes, to you
and to all you others, the great, the near-great, the featured, the extras
who pass quickly and return in dreams saying your one or two lines,
my love!
Long may you illumine space with your marvellous appearances, delays
and enunciations, and may the money of the world glitteringly cover you
as you rest after a long day under the kleig lights with your faces
in packs for our edification, the way the clouds come often at night
but the heavens operate on the star system. It is a divine precedent
you perpetuate! Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!
And to start the week on a friendly foot, here is a September picture of me, taken by Slava:
I was 17 at the time, and because I fell in love for the first time, I read a lot of poetry. I love reading, period. I read Prozac Nation the year before and the suffering smart girl image stuck to me; luckily I’m affected with what I consider a Serially Positive Person syndrome, so I could never succumb to the all-encompassing depression, but you can understand the appeal. Anyway, I discovered Sylvia Plath, and the beauty of suffering, self-sacrifice and generally batshit crazy circumstances.
I will write about Sylvia Plath another day.
I want to tell you about my discovery of The Dying Man. This poem was written by Theodore Roethke in memory of W.B. Yeats. It consisted of five parts, and it was one of the strongest poems I ever read. I can not remember the circumstances that brought me to this poem – whether we studied it in English 12 class, or whether I owe its acquaintance to the undegrad English classes at UBC. Whatever it was, I remembered my favorite line, which I would love to even take to afterlife with me: “The loose air sent me running like a child– I love the world; I want more than the world…”
The whole part IV, “The Exulting”, is an emotional tour de force, an in-depth look at the soul that’s thirsty for life, is full of childlike wonder and does not ever want to cease its being. Here is part IV in full:
Once I delighted in a single tree;
The loose air sent me running like a child–
I love the world; I want more than the world,
Or after-image of the inner eye.
Flesh cries to flesh; and bone cries out to bone;
I die into this life, alone yet not alone.Was it a god his suffering renewed?–
I saw my father shrinking in his skin;
He turned his face; there was another man
Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid.
He quivered like a bird in birdless air,
Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere.Fish feed on fish according to their need:
My enemies renew me, and my blood
Beats slower in my careless solitude.
I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed.
I think a bird, and it begins to fly.
By dying daily, I have come to be.All exultation is a dangerous thing.
I see you, love, I see you in a dream;
I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum,
And that slow humming rises into song.
A breath is but a breath: I have the earth;
I shall undo all dying by my death.
PS. Jellyfish photo is mine. (c)
My dreams do not end at the white picket fence, a Golden retriever, a BBQ, a 2-hour commute and a pack of kids. No offense to people who aim for that, I have respect for that kind of life and clearly see the benefits. This is not an attack, but stage-setting.
I was made in a different part of the human factory. I got adventure, thirst, and restless, unbreakae spirit hardwired into me. I was meant to push the limits and go places others only vaguely heard of. I could not – at least not in the foreseeable future, – settle down and succumb to the droning repetitive Monday-Fridays, chore Saturdays and BBQ Sundays. Again, not a sin in my books, but not my priority.
I know there is so much more to learn, to try, to see, to know and feel. Especially in our day and age of digital communications. How can I feel content within my 5-block radius, knowing that I could be dancing in Rio and watching the fireworks in Shanghai, helping the kids of Tibet or learning how to manage a herd of caribous? We are all living in the same village now; I can’t pretend that I would be entirely content in the quiet, pastel, mall-like part of it.
McLuhan writes something that strongly resonates with me and compels me to move, act, interact, question and learn:
“the shock of recognition! In an electric information environment [...]Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other.”
I can’t sit around or simply operate in my micro-household galaxy. That is why I plunge into the unknown; I will continue to do so for as long as I can. I want to die a life worth re-telling, a life worth of millions of gigabytes of memories, smiles, people and passions.
“I love the world; I want more than the world.” The Dying Man by Theodore Roethke. In Memoriam W.B. Yates.
Perhaps the years of Russian schooling taught me to love classical music. I’d like to think it’s the fact that in grade 6 we listened to, discussed and thoroughly studied Grieg’s Peer Gynt, the fate-knocking-on-your-door Beethoven’s Symphony No 5 and the like. I can appreciate any instrumental music (unless it’s downright whack, nonsensical and devoid of all talent), and am particularly fond of the violin.
Couple of weeks ago it struck me as odd that I haven’t been to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since I moved to Toronto. Two weeks ago I had a wonderful opportunity to see Midori in action, thanks to TSO’s affiliation with our League of Kickass Under 30. Her performance was mesmerizing, a performance that reminded me of a swan in agony or a very skillful 80′s dancer. Her body was part of the violin, the notes sending shocks all over her, making her move to the sound of music. Powerful. We then had an opportunity to talk to the conductor Jun Maerkl at the Lexus Lounge.
Immediately after the performance, I signed up for TSO’s Soundcheck program, which offers discounted (and I mean, discounted – $12) tickets for any seat in the house, provided you are under 29! The guy next to you paid $100+ for his ticket, while you’re enjoying a $12 deal. Jeremy and I went to see The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz, conducted be Dutoit, last Thursday. A showstopper it was – skillful orchestra, and divine choir, as well as the doubly divine children’s choir, not to mention the powerful voices of Faust and Mephistopheles got me hooked. I am already planning my purchases of Mahler’s Symphony No 6, Prokofiev and Ravel, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Bartok and Strauss. now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened (ee cummings)
I found this poem/song through flickr. It came with this photo.
I was flying through the night sky.
夜空を飛んでいた。
Receiving the night wind whose feeling is good,
気持ちのよい夜風を受けて、
I was flying through the sky.
空を飛んでいた。
“More a little to the other side”
「もう少し向こうへ」
It’s not visible exactly from here,
ここからちょうど見えない、
To the world on that other side.
あの向こうの世界へ。
I will be flying off to Europe on Sunday evening! I am indeed getting more and more excited. By the second. As soon as I write my final exam of this summer (on Saturday), I will be free! BBQ will follow, some relaxation, skipping the Vice party in order to hang out at the park, and then Bobmo, Jean Nipon and Kip Bambino at the Drake Undeground. I say, great way to celebrate! I’ll try to sleep in as much as possible on Sunday, and then off to adventureland I go!
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
PS. Tagore was the first from Asia to win the Nobel prize. There is a song called “Praan” and is sung in Bengali (same poem). Check it out, it’s beautiful.
PPS. My first entry!
