To thine own self be true

If there was ever a set I was destined to own, this is it. A Happy Birthday to me present. 37 plays, 37 discs. Numerous big name UK actors. The Master of The Word. The World’s Greatest Writer.

I put them on each year at this time to commemorate his achievements and run. He’s still one of our greatest selfless heroes.

There were only 6,500 made. The insoles are neat–have maps of his run. In one shoe, you see his NF start to Thunder Bay end (farthest point inside). In the other, the reverse, Thunder Bay end back to NF start.

Some guy selling these for over 600 on eBay. I’ll keep these in pristine condition and bequeath them to my daughter; we used to participate in the runs.

Today when I went out to ride my 6 speed Raleigh Oasis bicycle, the chain was loose and off the turning mechanism, first time ever going back to the ’80s when I first bought the bike. When I got back to the garage yesterday, there was no problem; the chain was intact and working properly.

The last time I put a chain back on one of my bikes would have been in 1963-4 thereabouts, on my original 3-speed. The 6-speed looked daunting with all the extra mechanisms, but fixing it was basically the same as the olde 3-speed. It was an experience I’d totally forgotten about, some 53 years ago but, like riding a bicycle, it’s something you never forget, I guess.

Full moon was yesterday which coincides with the mystery of the chain coming loose on its own, of its own volition, while the bicycle was in a standing position kickstanded.

“He’d be catastrophic. She would not. The choice is not between cyanide and rat poison. The choice is between cyanide and a particularly unpalatable piece of meat that has been sitting in the fridge too long. You’ve got to force it down your throat because the alternative is unspeakable.”

More than enough to pleasure
eyes or soul, take your pick.
Sirmilik does not disappoint
beyond the treeline and barrens
with its tundra and moonscapes,
the frosted mounts and few carpets of green
hugging hills you could never hope to mow.
Glaciers rolling out to basins of stone
or ice, chilblain-cold.

So which Sirmilik do you desire?
The hoodoos like motley pagan worshippers?
Hills that spill against one another?
The lake below that is snow-illusion?

Sirmilik: a state of raw wild being,
impossible to reduce to a clause or phrase.
Oystered boulders, snow-illumined peaks,
the ranges forever spilling over,
gravelling downward everywhere you look
to multitudinous vistas.

Polar shelves and pale-layered strata.
Minute rivulets heading south or brooks
negotiating throngs of rocks.
Impossible to render except visually.
Inexplicable snowbergs without a Titanic
to waylay amid the blue or purple snow.
Striated coulees run dry
onto an interminable plain
with heaps of antlers now backlit by sun,
just a weird dispatch from Sirmilik.

(Established in 2001, Sirmilik National Park is located in Nunavut. The name means “the place of glaciers”.)

(Newman’s cookbook, rare signed)

Herb Alpert–Tango Nuevo
Robert Altman–Pret a Porter
Joan Baez–And a Voice to Sing With
Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, director Arthur Penn–playbill of The Miracle Worker
Claire Bloom–Leaving a Doll’s House
Kenneth Branagh–Hamlet screenplay
Dave Brubeck (“Take Five”–jazz classic)–signed photo and letter
Eric Burdon (The Animals)–Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Michael Caine–Elephant to Hollywood
Glen Campbell–best of CDs
Johnny Clegg–photo, DVD, CDs
Judy Collins–Shameless, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Roger Corman–How I Made 100 Movies
Ray Davies (Kinks) signed CD and photo
Donovan–Hurdy Gurdy Man
Stephen Frye and director–Wilde movie screenplay
Art Garfunkle–Still Waters (poetry)
Jane Goodall–In the Shadow of Man
Julie Harris–signed photo
Thor Heyerdahl–Kon Tiki Expedition
Hal Holbrook–Mark Twain Tonight–book and playbill
Janis Ian–several items
Billy Joel–The Stranger LP
Kingston Trio–concert book (rare, signed by original 3)
Jack Lemmon–playbill of Mr. Roberts
Leslie and Leigh Keno (PBS’s)–Hidden Treasures
Sidney Lumet (famous movie director)–Making Movies
George Maharis (of iconic tv series Route 66)–playbill
Willie Nelson–autobiography
Paul Newman–Newman’s Own Cookbook
Sidney Poitier–This Life (also saw him here in Edmonton at the Jube a few years back)
Anthony Quinn–One Man Tango
Jimmie Rodgers (“Honeycomb” ’50s singer-hitmaker)–LP, thank you note and letter to me
Kenny Rogers–The Heart of the Matter
Charles M. Schulz–Good Grief!
Martin Scorcese–Age of Innocence movie book
The Searchers (60s UK ;pop group)–several items
Paul Simon–Lyrics
Siskel and Ebert–The Future of Movies (rare, signed by both)
Peter Ustinov–signed book with Ustinov self-caricature
Robert Vaughn (actor)–A Fortunate Life
Suzanne Vega–several items
Roger Whittaker–LP
Jonathan Winters–2 books
Woodward & Bernstein–All the President’s Men–both signed, rare
The Yardbirds (UK 60s pop group)–several items
The Zombies (UK 60s pop group)–several items

(left: Graham Greene’s famous slanted signature; right: Tennessee Williams’ languorous signature)

EngLit
W. H. Auden–City Without Walls
Joseph Conrad–The Secret Agent
Graham Greene–Dr. Fischer
Aldous Huxley–Meredith
Somerset Maugham–A Writer’s Notebook
Siegfried Sassoon–To My Mother
Tom Stoppard–Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Evelyn Waugh–Basil Seal Rides Again                                                                                 Virginia Woolf–A Street Haunting

AmLit
Robert Bloch–Psycho
Ray Bradbury–Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury: An Illustrated Life
Laurence Ferlinghetti–two different eds. of A Coney Island of the Mind
Allen Ginsberg–White Shroud
Lorraine Hansberry–A Raisin in the Sun
Arthur Miller–Timebends
Eugene O’Neill–Dynamo
Wallace Shawn–My Dinner with Andre
Sam Shepard–Cruising Tales
May Swenson–Iconographs
Thornton Wilder–The Long Christmas Dinner
Tennessee Williams–The World of Tennessee Williams

(recommended: good, cheap, readable Arcturus edition, available at Chapters/Indigo these daze)

I think Dickens got it right with the original short, ‘sad’ ending. Much there is in the book before that, that supports an unhappy ending. Both Pip and Estella were both so used and damaged that a happy ending does not fit the greater context, tone, atmosphere, and characterization.

I used to like the longer, happy, revised ending back at Satis House with no shadow leaving the couple as they walk off into the ‘Casablanca’ mists, but it’s just a little too hackneyed, clichéd, and Pollyanaish to think that the two different conflicted characters could ever find true love and happiness after all was said and done. (I used to believe more in miracles and that love could overcome all, but I’m too much of a realist these daze, I’m afraid.)

So the second/final/happier ending is possible if ‘anything is possible’, but not as likely as reality and what Dickens intended. Definitely a case of Kerouac’s “First thought, best thought” methinks. As he rewrote the ending, it was an obvious case of giving Wilkie Collins and the people ‘what they want’ and limitedly/Victorianly-preferred.

I think that the two endings are unnecessary in any case. The book should have stopped with Pip finding Joe and Biddy happily married. There’s your real happy ending for two good, deserving characters and just deserts for the proud, ignorant, hesitant, blind Pip. As much as Estella and Drummle deserved one another; on a par with leaving Pip a sadder, but wiser man. Period. The End.

(baby deer about 6 feet from my van in parking lot @ resort)

Also Bighorn sheep everywhere. Saw several herds of males and females at various times of day. Even watched them from hot pool on hill across the street. Radium easily exceeds Banff and Jasper for wildlife sightings. My thirst to experience The Wild more than quenched on this getaway.

Got virtualized during blog break. Must have had my guard down.

(photo by my daughter)