Friday, October 22, 2004

great picture of Arthur Rimbaud at Anny Ballardini's blog, as well as some of the young feller's poetry, both original and translated. the picture reminds me of Emily Dickinson portraits: there's a shitload more there than the surface niceness. I think of the older Rimbaud a little like the last image of the hero of The Magic Mountain (I stupidly can't think of the character's name) (yes I can: Hans Castorp), that ghostly soldier. I forget where I read that Rimbaud might've been, outside chance, an inspiration for Kurtz in "Heart of Darkness". gun runner, slaver, ex-poet making his way after eschewing poetry. and just to tangent further, I saw "Apocalypse Now" for the 1st time last summer. what a heap of malarkey. some nice moments, nice images, but criminy, what a potful. Brando was just plain silly, didn't anyone else notice? but anyway, good of the other AB to pour a flowing flagon of Rimbaudian brew. like Stein, Rimbaud did what the post-moderns thought they invented.

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