To thine own self be true

The Eyes of Orson Welles, a 2018 documentary based on Orson Welles’ 1000 sketches will be shown on Turner 5/13 6-8 pm. Sounds interesting.

Also, if you missed it, his great unfinished movie The Other Side of the Wind was reassembled and finished by Netflix and has been available there since last fall. It has not been released to vid yet.

Rhubarb: Vegetable.
Tomato: Fruit.

Chewbacca, dead, 74.

It was time now for love’s new song. His salvation lay far beyond her imagined graces. It was time now to give thanks, to burn all mementos. He would sing of her praises beyond their conclusion. It was time at last for a song beyond seasons. A song beyond the knives and ashes of particular loves. A song beyond death, unwithholding and dazzling in its hopeful affects. In solitude once more, they withstand the changes in tides and reason, begin again the pas-de- deux of dream and spirit, resplendent like the dancing waves, strength unto strength. May this, their lost joy, illumine forever some blessed isle or quiet hill. The spirit of forgotten seeds shall whisper now. Hear it speaking to the many–“Cast aside thy lowliness and be magnificent once more. Though their shadows be gone, their vision remains like remembered touch or stained-glass moment. Life, breath, and firmament shall make anew the greenness that hath faded from their fields. Gather unto thee another and sing glad the praises of the love-fallen saints. Come now to know this way, this bliss, this peace, this sacrifice, this touch, this wonder, this undying faith, this goodness, this heart and exaltation, this henceforth and forever more, this beauty and its beholding, this spring promise and new awakening, this imagination and most humble blessing, this beatitude and prayer, this grace and glory, as it was in the beginning, in this world without end…”

“After love, book collecting is
the most exhilirating sport of all.”
–A.S.W. Rosenbach

You were the rarest book of all,
for me, the ultimate edition.
Much of you had been unread
though you remained in great shape,
unfaded and unmarked.
Crisp and fine,
inscribed to me only,
a true collectible.

Bibiliophile that I am,
I had never come across
such definitive copy.
Nothing chipped or shelf-cocked
about you.
A trim folio, unpaginated,
without a slipcase.
Your spine sunned,
but binding intact.

I had no blurb to go by,
but dedicated myself
to your sole acquisition.
Your front matter
and end-pages skim-read
as I turned you
over in my hands, savouring
each distinguishing point.
Your non-gilt edges
and errata were all forgiven.
I loved most your imprint
your laid-ins
and variant proofs.

And so for me, as issued,
you were First Thus.
No bookplate ever
for you, o precious tome.

In another life, Emily Dickinson
befriended Andre the Giant
and body-slammed him to the mat
at Riverside Coliseum.

Andre was impressed by her
technique and white dress.
‘I have always depended on
the excellence of execution,’ she winked.

For his own part, Andre went gaga
when the Belle rang his bell:
‘Me Andre, you Emily’ and sent her
roses after every Royal Rumble.

Tour guides at Amherst
became embarrassed by
the ghostly sightings of Miss E
in her second-story bedroom

from which she lowered picnic baskets
of bananas and bread to the Giant
who visited her by moonlight
or whenever his contract permitted.

When Andre died, it was said
she wrote him an ode with caps galore.
His last gift to her was the dropkick of love:
a tribute for all his hardcore fans.

Wearing his Sunday best
he sits upright
on his bed beside
the open black dressing bag.
His smooth girl’s hand
gently strokes the razor
shoehorn and cigarette case–
the mirror long since removed.

Picking up a brush
he combs the wispy hairs
of his cauliflower head,
fancies himself a lover
in cool evening shadows.
From overgrown lips
come no spluttering noises–
only poetry and affectionate song.
(The lady in question accepts his proposal.
They marry in a cardboard church
which Joseph has constructed.)

The reverie passes
and Joseph sighs.
Lonelier than ever
he limps about his cell
gazing at the bric-a-brac
his noble friends have sent him.
Sitting by a casement
he contemplates the sky,
his child-like soul thirsting
for vistas, woods, and lawns unseen,
birds, fish and flowers.

Till tired of pining
and out of time and hope,
he lies down on the bed
‘like other people’,
and closes his forlorn eyes.
In his latest dream,
he imagines asylums
for the blind and distant lighthouses
twinkling in the dark.

After dinner and croquet
we sat happy, content
with ourselves,
family and world
in the grey backyard
calm of twilight.

The whoosh and cries
came too sudden
for knowing/
the stillness broken
by necessity and
Nature’s fact.

The cedar shattered
with absurd terror
as the hawk tore
a path to just one
unready sparrow.

He cleared the bush
in nano-seconds,
his unreal shriek
of triumph lifting
supper, arcing upon
an indifferent sky–
the random babe
ripped out of
the only life it had
ever dumbly known.

“What was that?” we asked,
“hawk or merlin?”
But exactitude
no longer mattered
in that eerie birdless hush,
as we turned once more
in private doubt, lost
for words, and resumed
our game of Scrabble.

There is, of course, our dreams and plans–those imaginings in broad daylight of what might be or become. But then there are those larger nocturnal visions, narratives, and mental movies that pop up every so often.

These come from our vast past storage of memories–sometimes entire ‘novels’, ‘plays’, and ‘films’ stored in deep hidden silos of our past experiences. There is also what we have seen through images, ads, movies, and travel–those experiences which made a strong visual impact of our archiving brains, memories, and imaginations.

These night-time dreams come from what we have experienced or learned during the past day/s or from decades before. Limitless time travel via our freed consciousness. These dreams can be, flow, and emerge as large as novels, plays, or movies.

One does not even have to have actually travelled to other world places in order to experience Egypt, the jungle, the frozen North, or the high seas in one’s dreams. Reading fiction, non-fiction, and travel books or watching documentaries and tv shows about far-away and famous places can transfer those images to one’s unsuspecting brain.

But whatever you dream personally is mostly unique and subjective. There is only one ‘you’ after all so your dreams, daydreams, and night-dreams will, inevitably, be hard to communicate to others.