To thine own self be true

Waking up suddenly to the alarm, as I struggle to finish an impromptu speech-recitation on Alfred, Lord Tennyson to a small audience, ad-libbing the conclusion from a printout with tiny illustrations of Inuit figures and assorted available words scattered about the page: “Old man plays…with…….kite.”

As I come to, from overhead, I see the elderly Tennyson with broad-brimmed hat and long, unkempt beard, running in a large meadow to keep a kite airborne for his two sons dressed in Victorian clothes.

Where would we be without the news media to entertain us?

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow found on the above disc. For kids 10 or older. That scary a climax. Disney sure knew how to make ’em! A true Halloween classic.

I could personally recommend.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and the original 1963 movie adaptation version of The Haunting starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom, directed by Robert Wise. The book is recommended for junior high and up (Used to be on the old AB English 13/10-2 curriculum when I started teaching in 1972). The movie will still scare some senior high students; it’s that well-done, even in B & W. Not for kids under junior high age.

An Age of Reason or An Age of Common Sense.

Take your pick. Tippi Hedren’s tell-all autobio out this week. The latter out before Christmas–the film no fans ever thought to see. Hitch being interviewed by one of his biggest fans, director Francois Truffaut, that gave the stamp of ‘Art’ to Hitch’s films.
Well, deja vu. Woody vs. Mia. Roman Polanski’s famous exile.
I don’t know about Art justifying the means, but there will always be the court of public opinion on the sins and foibles of the greats. Shakespeare put it best in Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them.”
That Hitch exploited, assaulted, and abused Tippi is fact and she is to be applauded for clearing the record and telling her story, her version, before she passes. If anything–though their rentals will increase–The Birds and Marnie will definitely never be looked at the same with a classic (the first) taking the biggest hit. How much will her revelations affect film fans’ opinions of the rest of Hitch’s movies, it’s hard to say. There is the argument of context, which works both ways for the rest of Hitch’s canon, of course. I suspect the Legend will continue to be revered (if not loved), especially with Truffaut/Hitch DVD forthcoming. As much as his reputation will take a hit in November, December will see it rise again for many of his staunchest fans.
Pat Hitchcock, his daughter, has done much to elevate her father’s reputation with the numerous rereleases of the past 15 years. It’ll be interesting to see if she has any comment. Forgotten in all this e-entertainment fodder will be Hitch’s loyal deceased wife, Alma Reville, who was the woman behind many films’ successes.
I doubt, though, that Hitch as a person will ever be seen the same way again. Shakespeare was right.
Predictably, a movie called Tippi will be hastily assembled within a year. Will Anthony Hopkins play an even sleazier version of The Master?
Tippi’s been through hell, but this book will gain her a lot of support, kudos, and sympathy, along with the traditional pity that’s long been traditionally expressed by those many in the industry who also knew what happened, but could never report more than just the surfaces.

The final week of the U.S. election. A political dilemma if ever there was one. Greed and hollow victory for someone. A split country and a disgraceful inheritance. There will be many who will mourn the results regardless of which way the vote goes. A mighty country has really fallen; imploded, in fact. The Death of the American Dream in Big Letters.

KLUTE (1971)

Director: Alan J. Pakula
Stars: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland

“There are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone.”

Klute is a classic thriller about three very different people engaged in a common search for identity. One is Bree (Jane Fonda in a remarkable Academy-winning performance), a nervous, insecure prostitute who is being stalked by an unremembered previous client. The second (Donald Sutherland) is the private detective who seeks to track down a longtime friend gone missing in a big city. The third is the enigmatic stalker himself who remains mysterious until the end of the film, despite his identity being revealed early on.

What makes this film special is its focus on the minefields of vulnerability, intimacy, and caring. Who can one trust when one has been exploited as much as the unstable Bree? Can people who are damaged ever recover and make lasting positive changes in their lives? How can she open to feeling ‘normally’ about a quiet stranger who is honest about everything and caringly protective of her?

The real protagonist of this film is obviously Bree, and she is laid bare to the viewer in quite a different way from her chosen work. She has aspirations to be a model or an actress and wants to improve herself, going to regular sessions with her ‘straight’ buddha-like female psychiatrist who says little as Bree, onion-like, peels her own way through monologues toward a clearer view of herself. Probably the most telling line is when she confesses a desire to go back to “the comfort of being numb again.” As things turn out, Bree holds the key to the other two male characters who mirror her and participate in their own separate, though related quests.

John Klute is a serious, determined friend of the missing man’s family who volunteers to find Tom and vindicate him of police charges of perverted harassment. He ends up learning more about himself in the process, his uptightness, and his own vulnerability and the unexpected need for someone else in his life. His natural instinct to do good and help others is the key that opens up his life even though Bree repeatedly rejects him and tries to destroy their developing connectedness.

The movie is named after him and in many ways he remains the most simple, yet fascinating character—caring for the woman who stubbornly tries to maintain rigid control over her own repressed feelings. Klute represents pure altruism and is the mysterious kind stranger that terrifies both the killer and his victim. He is the agent who initiates the action and centrally resolves the conflicts of the other two characters.

The third character is the sexual deviant lurking at the edge of ‘opening up’ in Klute. Like the other two characters, he too makes a breakthrough in understanding the price paid for repression and obsession. As he puts it in the dramatic climax, there are “sicknesses and weaknesses” that should never be exposed. Although there is the terrible price of numbness that Bree has paid for maintaining control over her clients, there is also a toll for the bogeyman of this piece who amasses four murders, to cover his essential sadism. A startling reminder of all the Jeffrey Dahlmers and Boston Stranglers of our modern world, he symbolizes, memorably, the potential dangers unleashed in the ever-apprehensive transaction of ‘opening up’.

In short, there may be reasons to let some devils remain locked up, though for many—the Brees and Klutes of the world—there are very good reasons to, as Bree puts it, “let it all hang out.” Klute exists to show us that opening up and trusting others who really care for us is a risky business at best. But that the resultant emotional growth and truly deep, personal benefits are far too great to go ignored or unheeded.

(Dylan in his 1966-67 Blonde on Blonde prime)

Quote any 10 memorable poetic lines by Atwood, Walcott, any other poet of the past 6 decades..
Quote any 10 memorable lines of Dylan. (Some of these can be recited in full song form.)
(BTW/ Rudyard Kipling, who was another rhymester, won a Nobel in 1907: “In consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creation of this world-famous author.” Hmmm, sounds like Dylan and his work, even to the point that Dylan has written many story songs.)

Some examples of poetry in Dylan’s work:

“You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?”

“Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while”

“Mona tried to tell me
to stay away from the train line
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine
And I said, oh, I didn’t know that,
But then again, there’s only one I’ve met
And he just smoked my eyelids
And punched my cigarette”

“The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep
They wait for you,
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin’ from my broken cup,
And as me to open up
The gate for you”

“With your sheet metal memory of Cannery Row
And your magazine husband who one day just had to go
And your gentleness now which you just can’t help but show
Oh who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you’re on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold
and your saint-like face and your ghost-like soul
Oh who among them do you think could destroy you?”

“She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She’s a hypnotist collector
You are a walking antique”

“The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horseman
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge”

Other Dylan songs which are pure poetry (sans music) with quotable lines:

All Along the Watchtower
Ballad of a Thin Man
Blowin’ in the Wind (anthem of a generation)
Chimes of Freedom
Dear Landlord
Desolation Row
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Forever Young
Girl from the North Country (sung with Johnny Cash)
Gotta Serve Somebody
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Highway 61 Revisited
Hurricane
I Don’t Believe You
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
I Shall Be Released
I Want You
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Idiot Wind
If Dogs Run Free (jazz recitation)
If Not for You
It Ain’t Me Babe
It’s All over Now, Baby Blue
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only Bleeding)
Just Like a Woman
Just like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Lay Lady Lay
Like a Rolling Stone
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Man Gave Names to All the Animals
Masters of War
Mr. Tambourine Man
My Back Pages
One Too Many Mornings
Positively 4th Street
Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
She Belongs to Me
Simple Twist of Fate
Slow Train Comin’
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Tangled up in Blue
Tears of Rage
This Wheel’s on Fire
Time Passes Slowly
The Times They Are-A-Changin’
To Ramona
Tombstone Blues
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You
Visions of Johanna
When the Ship Comes In
When You Gonna Wake Up?
With God on our Side
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere

(later added, of his songs up to 2001: Ballad in Plain D, Black Diamond Bay, Bob Dylan’s Dream, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream, Gates of Eden, Isis, Joey, Jokerman, Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Long Ago Far Away, Man of Peace, Only a Pawn in Their Game, Romance in Durango, Sign on the Window, Three Angels (recitation), Tomorrow Is a Long Time.

His work has had a huge impact on our generation and subsequent listeners, and abroad (Beatles were huge fans). He continues to put these song-poems and a zillion others out there (still touring and recording).
I can’t think of another poet (and that goes for Thomas, Auden, et al) with as huge a catalogue. And I do think his use of rhyme is amazing and has made him very popular and quotable. That he has been commercially successful seems to be a non-starter as an argument; rather it suggests how influential he’s been. That he’s not a woman or non-caucasian–the politically correct stuff–is another non-starter. He’s beyond them, beyond very good, beyond very prolific, beyond very poetic; his work’s great: period. I think he’s the greatest songwriter of the 20th century. He has done way more with lyrics than Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie or any songwriter you’d care to nominate.

this ain’t no dress rehearsal.”–RD