Spider-Man

Erin and I watched this last night. Meant to watch Jason & the Argonauts, but it was no longer in Comcast’s freebies. I remember seeing Jason when I was young, eyes wide no doubt. The special effects hold up well. But anyway…

Spiderman (I do not really want to use that requisite hyphen, thank you) is about as good as superhero movies get. It is nice that Sam Raimi knew what to do with the money he was given for it. The movie looks fresh from the start.

Tobey Maguire is an unlikely choice for Spidey, in the sense that some blander hunk might have been chosen. He has dorky charm. No complaints about the rest of the cast. Kirsten Dunst puts depth in the pretty girl role, and Willem Dafoe is Willem Dafoe. Gosh he is wiry. I think he was in a movie in which he was a boxer in a German concentration camp, fighting (literally) to survive. Lean then, lean now.

As with all these superhero flicks, there is a long portion supplying us with how the superpowers developed and how the arch villain came to be so arch. Added to that is several other plots mostly surrounding Pete and MJ. Thanks to Marvel, comix turned to the inspiration of soap operas to keep their legions of fans interested. Yeck. It is just clutter when you do not really mean it.

So anyway, when something hi-tech goes wrong for Peter, it is a good thing, when something hi-tech goes wrong for Dafoe, he’s blowing people up. Well, that Dafoe is tightly wired, we all know that.

Spidey in action is giddy stuff, reflecting the tone of the comic. Yes, as Peter Parker he is morose, but swinging thru NYC, he’s a happy camper. The effects sometimes look cartoonish, but the sweeping camera views make up for that. And unlike with Star Trek, I was not suffering vertigo.

I liked the 2nd Spidey, as well, tho I can barely recall it except that it had Doc Ock, and there was the scene in which Spidey stops a train, which was cinematically exciting but I’m thinking that it pushes the reasonable limits of Spidey’s strength. Never saw part trois.

Funny to think of comix as such a mine for movies. I mean, yes, of course they invite the transfer, but they are hit or miss. Mr Fantastic’s powers, for instance, are just ridiculous, unbelievable. Spidey stopping a train leaves one wondering if he has limits. Tho he was mightily wasted from the effort, you still think, come the climax, he will have to do more. I think with myths like Jason, there is a more meaningful imperative. At any rate, Spidey comes as close as I have seen for a superhero movie to have soul.

A Little Help here, Ron

Ron Silliman's collection of check it out is a valuable resource, but the vague and enigmatic titles for his links throw stones in the passway. A clearer indication of the rewards at the end of the click would be welcome. Just a suggestion from Dear Reader. I appreciate his effort natheless.

A Couple of Things Around

1. Jack Kimball’s Pantaloons. This has been a worthy read for years. Jack’s criticism and his reportage have always been strong. For a while now, his focus has been on the political mush surrounding and overwhelming us. The result of that focus is not simply commentary but a political implementation of language. This is keen stuff. In some sense, language is politics. Jack has been deploying language like bolts of disordered reason. It is a sort of healthy overunsimplification that twists the way the lowdown villains twist, then twists again.
2. Ben Friedlander regularly serves American Poetry in the Age of Whitman and Dickinson to us. Ben is a scholar, has that rigour, but is also a poet. This blog represents notes of his interest. I particularly liked the intimations (he’s adverting a full study) of Dickinson’s war poetry, and a brief on Theodore Parker, who was much more Emersonian (if you will accept that shorthand), than I knew. Not just an abolitionist, that is: he was friends of the Brownings!

Leonid Shower ‘09

We planned to visitate the Leonid Meteor Shower this week but had the day wrong. Beth had to work that night and Erin conscientiously thunk about his early class next day, so we canned it. But I woke at 2:00 got up and wandered locally for 90 minutes. I saw little in terms of meteor thigns, tho conditions were decent.

The next night, things were green, and we were hopeful that bits of star stuff would continue to zip excitedly thru our atmosphere. Finding a darksome locale for viewing in our populous region required some thinks, but we chose some conservation land amongst the 4000 citizens of Carlisle, MA, hoping the coppers don’t prove a bringdown, man.

So there we were, on a blanket on the ground. Temperature was around freezing, sky was clear. Time: 23 hundred hours.

I am inexplicably cheered by the sight of Orion, mon ami. It is one of the few celestial bodies that I can identify. I read that the meteors would emanate from the region of Mars, another body that I can identify. Not for us! The few meteorites that we saw (witnessed would be an appropriate verb, so fleeting is their appearance) were off to the left.

But it did not matter that we saw so few. It was lovely being out there together, with the expressed intention of looking at the sky. Even aircraft, mostly from this planet, are of interest. We could hear owls hooting, the occasional rustle in the woods of maybe deer, and then…

And then a nearby auditory gallimaufry—or do I mean salmagundi?—of coyotes on the hunt. They were down that way, towards the river (the mighty Concord of legend was about a 1/4 mile away). We took their excitement as cue to leave. Yes, we got spooked, but aggressive coyote packs have been documented recently. A couple of years ago Beth and I watched a lone coyote in broad daylight stalk carelessly within our apartment complex near the center of town, here kitty kitty kitty. What I am saying, it was a concern, tho really, we were done by then, and ready for easeful sleep.

It was fun and more to share this with my family, that is what I am finally saying.

The Howling

I thought I saw this movie before but it turns out I saw the sequel, The Howling II, which has little to do with this thing. It is a werewolf movie, directed by Joe Dante and starring a fairly good cast. Not a great movie, but worth watching. Okay, worth watching if werewolves are worth watching. There is something to the genre, more compelling, perhaps, than the extended malarkey associated so much with the Vampire genre.

I suspect that this movie might have seemed pretty decent when it came out in the early 80s but now its aura of datedness obscures its virtues. Movies get dated quickly. The only type of movie that I want to see is guilty pleasures, which is to say, they interest me despite themselves. Poetry, you know, offers no guilty pleasures. You take poetry on the level it was intended. Few movies satisfy me on that level.

Anyway, the cast is pretty good. Dee Wallace Stone all play a tv reporter who allows herself to meet with a serial killer. Something happens in that meeting. She nearly gets killed and he does. And she is much shook up by this, so goes to a getaway with her husband. This  getaway is a sort of Esalen. It is run by Patrick MacNee.

Among the denizens at the institute are John Carradine and Slim Pickens. Another character in the movie is played by Dick Miller. Do any movies lacking at least one of those three exist?

The plot fizzles a bit. I mean, guess what, everyone’s a werewolf. First hubby gets bit, then Dee’s reporter friend, and so on. The chills are given surprisingly little scope.

What is given scope is the special effects. Rick Baker is credited as a consultant, la-de-dah. In the glee of using new technology, Dante offers prolonged execution of werewolf transformation processes. I would sooner see the stop action sort of transformation that Lon Chaney underwent than these static animatronic rituals. Watching this stuff is as interesting as listening to Bill Gates explain future conveniences to us.

I wonder who established that these physical transformations make noise? The crunchy plastic noise that these extending snouts produce is not what you call intuitive to me. The werewolves, when all that is done, look little better than the Halloween masks you wore when you were eight. Again, I’ll take Lon Chaney and his hiatus from Gillette.

The plot goes as you might expect. Dee and a co-worker escape from Esalen. Dee is bitten during the escape. They arrange for Dee to tell the world about the menace. On a newscast she explains things, then turns into a werewolf, at which point the co-worker shoots her. See, there were effective elements in the movie but everything, finally, just hangs there. Sigh.

The sequel, as I recall, was more outré. It followed directly from Dee’s funeral. Someone who was not in the original decides she needs to know more, and heads off to the Balkans, where things are more orgiastic, and accents are thicker. It was a little more laughable than this movie, by my estimation. There are three or four other Howlings that I have not seen. Don’t miss them if you can.

Darkman

Just saw this thing, a Sam Raimi production. It has some of the virtues of the Spidey flicks, but not quite put together.

The movie starts with a bang. A gang in a warehouse awaits the arrival of a rival gang. There are just 5 in the rival gang, and they are frisked before they meet the gang leader. A member of the rival gang has a prosthetic leg. At a key moment, one of his comrades grabs the prosthesis, which proves to be a machine gun, and slaughters everyone but the boss of the first gang. The boss is then confronted by the rival leader, who looks like a meanie, albeit an urbane one. He is played by Larry Drake, who I know was on one of those endless dramatic shows in the 90s that I never watched. He trims his cigar with a cigar trimmer, then does likewise to the gang leader’s fingers. Ouch!

And then we turn to Liam Neeson, who is a scientist. You can tell: he wears a cardigan. He and his assistant are working on synthetic skin. Neeson’s girlfriend is Frances McDornand. She’s wasted in this flick, gasping and screaming mostly. Does it well, at least. Neeson’s role is thankless, spent much of the time wrapped in bandages. Oops, jumping ahead.

Okay, plot machinations in which McDornand discovers hincty business by the local billionaire. This sends the new gang boss to Neeson’s laboratory. He and his motley crue kill the assistant and mangle Neeson, in the course of which Neeson gets dunked in the synthetic skin, blah blah blah. The laboratory blows up and it appears Neeson is a goner. Gee, short movie.

Raimi does a transition in which McDornand stands staring at the burning laboratory, then the scene changes around her and she is at the cemetery mourning Neeson. Hokey, but thanks for trying.

A much-damaged Neeson is found, tho not identified, and brought to a hospital, where an apparent relative of Doktor Frankenstein merrily experiments on him. She takes 5 minutes to map out for us how John Doe’s nerves have been derailed and as compensation he has added strength but also adrenal surges that affect his moods. He also does not feel pain. Neeson suffers the diagnosis but bursts from his bounds before the doktor could share her prognosis, but we can guess, eh?

Neeson, resembling DeNiro in Frankenstein, albeit with facial bandages, shuffles off to a spare vacant warehouse to continue work on synthetic skin. He manages to build quite a set up, and perfects the skin so that he can go out in public. Not only that, he can create perfect likenesses of other people. And so he exacts revenge. Oh but wait, the skin holds together for only 90 minutes. His public appearances and guest shots can only last that long before Dorian Gray’s picture returns.

Neeson begins by grabbing one of the gang members, who he tortures in a sewer for info on the gang. Neeson, Darkman, finishes the guy by sticking the guy’s head up a manhole in brisk traffic. Fun Fact: the actor playing this gang member is Raimi’s brother. Hmmm…

Part deux of Darkman’s revenge consists of making himself look like another gang member. As this gang member, he absconds with money that was supposed to be delivered for the boss. The boss in his displeasure exacts a compelling toll.

Darkman feels good enough about his synth skin to return to McDornand, still with the 90 minute time limit. She had a minor dalliance with the billionaire after Neeson was presumed dead, btw.

Darkman goes coocoo for Cocoapuffs at times due to the adrenaline surge. He plays around with the boss and his gang, who play back, with McDornand getting threatened and such. The movie basically goes stupid.

Practicing for Spider-man, Raimi has Darkman dangling from cables quite a bit. Turns out that the billionaire is behind the gang boss. All bad guys die but Darkman turns from McDornand because he is ridden with comic book guilt and the usual mush.

Raimi has some verve here but this is a laboured effort. It is his first big Hollywood film and I am sure he had to buck the experts in the money room. Neeson did not seem comfortable at all, and McDornand, as I said, was wasted. So, in sum, it is just another comic book angst party except, because the comic book came out after the movie, it did not have the built in excitement that DC/Marvel extravaganzas bring (if they bring nothing else). Apparently the movie was popular, but I find it comme çi comme ça.

Paul Zukofsky Redux

Ron Silliman’s eternal blog offers links to PDFs of Louis Zukofsky’s A. I wondered wtf, how did someone manage that, copyright-wise? They didn’t.

Someone scanned the book then uploaded it to several storage sites. I downloaded it out of curiosity but now do not feel so good about doing so.

The scan was, it seems, done in spite. It is not a matter of Galahad freeing Louis’ work for the masses, it is someone tweaking Paul Zukosky for being a dick. No question, Paul presents himself as a dick regarding his protection of his father’s copyright. I link to his cranky explanation of his rights below. That explanation set someone off enough to let loose this subversion.

I do not know copyright law, tho the fact that I know such exists does make me an expert on it, doesn’t it? Having to pay to use small quotes in a paper seems excessive. I would like to see numbers such as how much it costs to quote Louis, how often is he quoted in non-Fair Usage manner, etc. What is the money involved?

Paul is a dick because he is in financial straits. Well, that’s what I hear, not to take anything at face value. Louis as literature is not the battle here, it is Louis as money cow. Okay, I respect his ownership.

I think Paul should (if it is not already done) prepare a digital version that could be sold, because there is use in that. The scan is from the published book, and could be better. It done clear enough, at least in my glance, but I cannot say if there are missed patches or blurs.

Copyright is a battleground now, because digital versions have confused things. I will cut Paul in his need some slack. This is the straw that he grasped.

It is funny to think of Louis being of last century, and in fact he was born more than a century ago. At some time he will be given wholly to the culture, like all the other dead and gone. The tangle here will be forgotten, Paul won’t need money, Person X won’t need to tweak. That’s literature in the wide world. We in our small worlds must do the best that we can.

The Alienator

I have a taste for this sort of dumb ass movie, which is inarguably a guilty pleasure. It was directed by Fred Olen Ray. I have seen several epics by Ray. I assume that he considers Roger Corman a genius for producing cheap movies that do not escape their cheapness yet somehow keep the eye transfixed. That seems to be the ballpark FOR is playing in.

The big star here is Jan Michael Vincent. I had to check Wikipedia on Vincent because tho I feel like I’ve seen him bunches of time, I could not recall any specifics. I never saw Airwolf, which I understand is his high water mark.

So the movie begins on a prison ship or satellite, you know, Out In Space. JMV is the sadistic warden. He ruthlessly beats up one prisoner and executes a 2nd one. As the 2nd one cooks, the first one grabs a guard’s ray gun and attempts an escape. This instigates an extended contemplation of how ineffective ray guns are. JMV and the guards chase this guy, yclept Colt, I think. Like most ray gun type weapons, phasers, for instance, the beam cannot be aimed in most circumstances, not even when people are running as slowly as everyone in this movie runs. A few guards go down but Colt escapes in a rocket scooter. JMV launches pursuit by The Alienator.

At this point, well into the movie, the credits roll. JMV is not the only big star in the flick. There is also John Phillip Law, who  I couldn’t quite put a face to but knew I would recognize him when it was his turn to show his face and reveal level of his career at the time.

We are now on Earth. A camper is bouncing along a dirt road. Inside are 4 people. That’s pretty much it. Two are female, 2 are male. SUDDENLY they see a meteorite. They decide to check it out. Well, they do not get to, because Colt in a fit of overacting escapes from the meteorite-like scooter and, crikey, gets hit by the camper. I may not have been paying an awful lot of attention at his point. The 4 bicker, finally John Phillip Law appears, as a forest ranger or sheriff or such like. They have Colt in custody because he looks shady. After all, he’s in a late 80s scifi movie.

AND THEN they realize that The Alienator is after Colt. He’s wearing a dog collar thingie that lets him know that. Colt allows that The Alienator is pretty scary stuff. Before the Alienator arrives, we must endure the comic relief of two country fellers, you know, hillbillies. Why golly, they aint too smart!

And then The Alienator arrives, via brilliant rocketship. The Alienator proves to be a large woman with explodo 80s hair. She has a ray rifle attached to her right arm. She is referred to as he and it before everyone kinda settles on she.

She meets up with the doctor who was called to tend Colt. TA fries him. She gets into a shoot out with the country fellers and the others. The comic relief get fried somehow, tho the ray rifle aims no better than ray guns. Somewhere along the way an ex-Army officer joins our earthling heroes and they all act like they mean to do something or other while TA stands around.

At one point TA steps into a bear trap. It mildly injures her. While tending her leg she sees a deer. Her ray rifle alerts her that the deer is not an enemy. I am not sure what the ray rifle had against the doctor.

Of the two males in the camper, one was a bully and the other a brainiac. Colt for some reason that was not deemed important enough for viewers to know took over the body of the bully, you know how that goes. Oh wait, TA is first vanquished by the brainiac. Something to do with an electron net or whatever. Brainiac explained it all in a 3 sentence exclamation while TA was undergoing he effects of this electron net.

NOW Colt shows his hand, and it looks bad. But it turns out that TA was not down for the count, and wielding an ax she chops Colt’s head off. Colt’s head grimaces then spurts a mouthful of white stuff. That’s pretty much the end except some half-assed plot concerning some refugee from Star Trek, who is somehow a compatriot of Colt’s, but he dies too, and JMV somehow (somehow is the chorus of this movie) ends up a good guy. So, what do you think?

Paul Zukofsky Is Trying

Ron Silliman bristles—I think that is the right word—over Ben Friedlander’s declaration that Marianne Moore is Modernism Central here, but I am taken by Paul Zukofsky’s scruffy possession of the da’s good work, which you can find here. Modernism is a sort of causal elk that I not need run after. Not to ignore historicity, but I think Ron’s too Lou Dobbs-ish about the borders. But Zukofsky…

The writers of interest all have someone guarding the gates. Mostly these gatekeepers are trying to protect the reputation. That does not seem to be Paul’s task, his interest attaches more to the golden calf. And it is all curious to me, not knowing how much money Louis’s work can add up to. Anyone know? I would not guess a lot.

From a marketing standpoint, I would think there was more mon to be made by letting the quotes flow liberally and sit back on the book sales. I will not argue Paul’s rights, but he comes across as sad and crass. Oh well, it is none of my business.

Ronin

I watched this movie starring Robert DeNiro yestreen, a spy sort of thriller. Ronin, we learn in the opening captions, are disgraced samurai who become mercenaries to redeem themselves. In this movie, they are, or seem to be, freelance espionage types.

The movie begins with an inscrutable scene in which DeNiro observes a bar in France. He secretes his gun outside then enters. It turns out that this is a meeting of the ronin, being hired by the Irish woman in the bar. The gang, 6 strong including DeNiro and the Irish woman, repair to a flat, and I don’t know why DeNiro hid his gun, which he retrieved before heading out.

I must stress that I did not give this movie 100% attention. I did dishes and came and went. Tho we have the dv-r thing, I am old-fashioned enough that i do not pause or repeat. What with plot intricacies and actors mumbling in several languages, I missed a lot. but so what.

So far as I could glean, the job was to get this box from some people. I do not think it was ever revealed what exactly was in the box. An Irish group, and a Russian one, were interested.

The gang consisted of DeNiro, Jan Reno (an actor that I am fond of), I think the actor who played Boromir, a guy named Larry, and a crisply dressed fellow named Gregor. DeNiro appears to be experienced, but does not reveal many facts about himself.

The gang are to buy (I think) the box. It looks dicey, DeNiro smells a rat, and sure enough, it becomes a shoot out.  All survive but no box is gained. Boromir pukes afterwards, I guess from the excitement, which causes DeNiro and Reno to exchange glances. It occurred to me later that Boromir was no longer present in the film. Was he killed or kicked out? Je ne sais pas.

There’s more sneaky spy stuff, in which they surveil a guy with a box, who is well-guarded. For all their sneakiness, they end up just blasting away at the box people. This engenders a ridiculous car chase over hill and dale. Cars teeter on cliffsides and slam about in marketplaces where, naturally, a vegetable cart is upturned. this will not be the only dumb chase in the film.

The result of this car chase is that a lot of the enemy have bought it, and the box is there to be taken. The police are arriving so escape must be made. Gregor hands the box to DeNiro, who discovers that it is wet with paint. He tosses it, and it explodes. Gregor disappears and the rest escape.

Okay, so we know that Gregor double crossed the gang. And he has the box. Well, there are machinations. Gregor wants to sell to a Russian, but is pursued by the Irish woman’s Irish boss, as well as the gang.  All very muddled.

DeNiro gets shot in the gut and Reno takes him to a friend and the tow of them assist in removing the bullet. DeNiro explains each step in the operation. I understand that battlefield removal of bullets is a bad idea, that it is best to dress the wound and deal with it later, but what kind of drama is that?

The Russian who Gregor is trying to sell to has an ice skating champ for a girl friend (played by Katarina Witt, I believe). In a greater muddle, the two Irish have Gregor and want him to sell the box to the Russian, or something close to that. But Gregor seems to have . an ace in the hole. Katarina Witt is skating and Gregor has a sniper trained on her. this was supposed to force the Russians hand but he shoots Gregor, Witt is shot, and the Irish guy gets the box.

Oh wait, I neglected to mention the excitement of another car chase, with DeNiro and Reno chasing Gregor and the two Irish against traffic. There were a few moments that looked exactly like French Connection, hommage or theft, and a lot of pointless screech and swerve. And blah blah blah.

Well finally, the Irish guy gets shot, tho DeNiro and Reno do as well. Before that, DeNiro tells the Irish woman to get away, and also that he isn’t a disgraced CIA agent, he’s the real thing. Well!

Both DeNiro and Reno survive. DeNiro hopes that the Irish woman would return, but she does not. She gone. Reno and DeNiro go on with their lives. The End.

There was a force in this movie that wanted it to become Mission Impossible, I mean the tv show, with the gang of specialists gathered to do dire deeds and fun stuff like that. Another part wanted to be gritty. Kinda flopped in both respects.

Gilgamesh

Just finishing up a reread of The Epic of Gilgamesh. I have the familiar Penguin Classics version by N. K. Sandars. It is a powerful and touching text.

I think I may first have encountered Gilgamesh while in elementary school. The story is lively enough where that is possible. Whatever, it had a direct appeal. Not to minimize the epic, but Gilgamesh seems like a superhero, only without the malarkey that comix are prone to. He is a barking wonderboy who you can imagine having boastful stele erected like Sargon did, you know Ozymandias (who I learn from Guy Davenport was Ramses II). Yet Gilgamesh had these plaintive qualities, qualities that are intensified when Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh is afraid of death. Timor mortis conturbat him.

Gilgamesh goes to his sort of father, the god Utnapishtim, known as Utnapishtim the Faraway. Which sounds like something Jung could work with. And the immortal life just don’t work out for Gilgamesh. Certes, you find similar stories in other cultures. I am not sure why Gilgamesh rings so clearly for me. The spread of Greek culture I suppose caused a dilution in the myths. Not that Greek myths are diluted or weak, but there are so many extant versions of the stories. I do not want to pretend to more scholarship than I have done so I will leave it at that. The point is that Gilgamesh’s fret seems current and immovable. Immovable.

Weirdness a la Lanny Quarles

Click this link for a particularly weird picture, thanks to Lanny Quarles. It is from his blog Jellybean Weirdo with Electric Snake Fang, which title aptly explains the goings-on that you will find there.

Lewis & Clark, Freely Available

I am excited to discover that the journals of my two favourite misspellers, Lewis & Clark, is available online. I really enjoy Bernard DeVoto’s excerpts therefrom, and this here presentation is extent.

Antic View

Jeff Harrison and I have racked up, now, 145 installments to Antic View. I will speak for Jeff as well as myself in saying that you should join us as we go.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

I saw this movie years ago and it earned a solid Wow! from me. It really delivers what the title says. Great concept!

Less great movie. It works, but if John Carpenter or Steven Spielberg (and their budgets) made this movie, they could have had winners.

I just lamented lack of budget but that is not the main flaw of the movie. The movie is cheesy, and that is largely okay. It survives its cheesiness tho the cheesiness undermines what could have been a very disturbing and scary movie.

The plot is that aliens that look and act like clowns have invaded earth. Their mission is to gather humans, for food. Brilliant! Clowns are loci of discomfort, aren't they? These guys sure are. Their happy looking faces feature lots of teeth, which is unsettling, and their clownish whimsy serves murderous intent.

The cast is uninteresting. There's that guy who was in that other movie (I think), and the young woman who screams and takes showers in other movies (no, not that one, the less famous one) does so in this one. Royal Dano comes thru as the poor man's Slim Pickens. John Vernon, the dean in Animal House, is the best thing here. He delivers several great lines. A few more performances like his could have turned this thing into something with fewer qualifications.

The Klowns play out all the appropriate memes of Clowndom. A bunch of them climb from a small car, they use popcorn and cotton candy nefariously, and they look like a lot of fun. That fun is belied. A small Klown seemingly bullied by a biker blithely knocks the guy's head off, literally. Another entertains a group of people with shadow puppets, until it creates a tyrannosaurus rex that consumes all the people.

In another scene, a young girl is playfully beckoned by a Klown. We fear the worst, but luckily the child is not injured. But plenty of other people are carted away. Part of the creepiness is that the Klowns are not just harvesting humans, they are enjoying themselves in the process.

In the most disturbing scene, the good cop discovers one of the aliens at the police station. It is seated at a desk. It turns around ominously. John Vernon, bad cop, sits on the Klown's lap. He speaks for the alien: Don't worry. We are just going to kill you.. The Klown then bloodily removes its hand from Vernon's back ventriloquist style. That, friends, is a monster.

Good cop shoots ineffective bullets into the Klown, but one hits the Klown's nose and that finishes the Klown. From here on, the plot races along pragmatically, or maybe I mean laconically. Some genuine and telling scares here, and a few laughs, but zero wit. Could have been better.

Richard Lopez, Really Bad Movies

I have been stupidly slow in linking to Richard's Really Bad Movies. Here he quotes Jim McCrary re Berrigan. We get caught up in the artist's condition. Focusing on such shagginess as Berrigan's pill consumption distracts from the actual accomplishment of the artist. Anyway, Richard (unwarranted 1st name basis) promulgates the glistering pleasures of horror movies and good family, that condition.

A Bit More Eigner

I was astounded to see that the collected poems of Larry Eigner, edited by Robert Grenier, counts out at more than 1800 pages. Zounds! I had no idea there was that much material.

It pleases me that such an attempt at completion has been offered to Eigner. The publication of these 4 volumes is an event to match, say, the collected Berrigan, long awaited.

I have credited Robert Creeley with helping me to understand the poetic line. I do not withdraw that credit, but realize that I owe credit to Larry Eigner, as well. To be thorough, I can add WCW, and Emily Dickinson's canny, puzzling shortchanging of metre. But back to Eigner.

Eigner practiced an intense capture of the word. I remember Grenier speaking of Eigner set up at a window, I think the living room window, at the Swampscott home, with that view to work from/with/to. The composition of his life, his life bounded, so to speak, by a wheelchair, made each word that he located prima facie. That is not to limit him to his condition, I think this exercise of verbal precision (honour of each word) is the genius that Eigner gives us.

After Eigner visited Franconia, I wrote something to or for him. The usual youthful dedication, I imagine. Grenier suggested that I send it to Eigner, that Eigner would be tickled to see a response. Shyness and maybe a sense that what I wrote was not worthy, prevented me from doing that. It occurs to me just now that I might have sent a missive to Eigner via whatever publisher, but I do not know when that might have been, but if I did this, I got no response.

Every writer writes from 'a condition'. That condition informs the writer, but less so us, the readers. Eigner's cerebral palsy, Keats' tuberculosis, wehatev. These conditions are just specific roods of occupied earth. One witnesses Eigner's condition in his writing, but his writing is not his condition.

Eigner pushed his words across the page, unloosening the left margin. I know that my writing started doing likewise at that time. My line...

Almost from the beginning, I wrote on keyboard (typewriter in the olden days). I used to write furiously fast. I would hit the return bar whenever I thought of it. The deal was, if I wasn't paying attention to the return bar, or the bell at the end of the line, I would inter bunches of letters at the last point there on the typewriter roll (I have lost almost all of the vocabulary of the typewriter), when the typewriter would adevance no further. In rewrite, I would lineage the mass of words that I had written. Ben Jonson, you may know, wrote his poems first in prose, then translated them to metre and rhjyme.

Well, I suppose it worked okay for Jonson, but I had to develop a metronom, to work with. Creeley, Eigner, and others, helped form my sense of the words in conjunction, with tensile strength. Eigner was a great writer, and I think the 1800 pages will show just how importasnt Eigner was, and continues to be.

Larry Eigner

Ron Silliman, perspicacious linkmeister, supplied access to Robert Grenier’s preface to the Collected Poems of Larry Eigner ici. It does not look as if this child will be buying that soon, mucho dinero, but it is a true publishing (poetry world division) event.

Grenier managed to get Eigner up to Franconia College sometime during my 2nd year at the school. I say managed because Franconia was a nationally recognized poverty zone at the time, and the 4 or 5 hour drive from Boston seemed to distance the school from most known aspects of civilization. Ashbery came the same year, by bus, and I got the impression that it was akin to a lunar landing.

This reading was about a year after Grenier had first gone to Swampscott to meet Larry. A handful of us, the poets of Franconia, sat round a table in the cafeteria and listened to Eigner. This visit, Grenier made clear to us, was a big deal for Larry. Larry’s father brought him up then discreetly slipped away, so that Larry could be the visiting poet. Larry was in his mid 40s at the time.

Calibrating one’s ear to how Larry spoke took a few moments, then it was the most intimate of poetry readings. Even then, there was a clear sensitivity on Grenier’s part to Eigner’s situation. I do not want to romanticize, but it seems like Grenier’s guardianship of Eigner was of a wonderful generosity. Friends’ of my parents adopted an infant who, it proved, had muscular dystrophy. He lived with the constant fear that he would outlive his parents. I do not know the nature of Grenier’s relationship with Eigner, but it sure seems that Grenier performed an act of generosity and compassion. I am glad that Larry Eigner is honoured with what I hope and believe is a wonderful presentation of Larry’s remarkable work.

Reading…

Reading Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being by Ted Hughes. It is another examples of me reaping the rewards of Beth’s curiosity, since she combs thru the shelves at bookstores whereas I tend to investigate much more narrowly. It is proving to be an enjoyable read.

I should say that I have not read much of anything by Hughes, only know some of his rep, including a bare modicum of his life with Sylvia Plath. Whatever that relationship was like, it has been transmogrified into legend at this point. Which is to say clouds, mist, haze, and what all. I am glad only a little of that tinges my reading of this book.

I like that this book is scholarly but not academic, if I can define academic to mean frozen within the confines of a dictated discourse. There is a certain type of academic writing that is coded for those between the ivy walls. I think Hughes escapes that limitation.

Hughes’ reading focuses on the mythic element of Shakespeare, and he admits to the influence of Robert Graves and The White Goddess. I appreciate WG, tho cognizant of Graves’ loopiness. Graves is not afraid of making desperate extrapolations, ones that I would not take at face value, but I appreciate the energy inspiring them. Somewhere I read his interpretation of the song “Foggy Foggy Dew”. With wild surmise he decides that the title comes from the Gaelic for Dark Lady or something near, and from that he produces the conjecture--the dark suggesting the nun’s veils--that the song is about a nun’s sexual dalliance. Weeeell, I dunno, as Chico would say.

Hughes keeps a stricter path, with a stringent focus on the theme he has in mind. I shall read “Venus and Adonis”, which I never felt compelled to do, and reread “Rape of Lucrece” because Hughes subtly place these poems within the larger context of Shakespeare’s oeuvre.

I am only at Chapter 3, and progress perforce will be slow, but it feels good to take a fresh look. It is a fat book, rich with implication.

Weekend

I have, of late, been titling my posts and writing (somewhat) more formally and focused, but today let me just ramble. We did a yard sale Saturday morning, part 2 of one we did a fortnight ago. Both sales were at our friends, since they are getting rid of stuff too, and they have a yard. The first one went well enough, but the 2nd one scared up little interest. Odd. And it was, as we say hereabouts, pissa cold: upper 30s as the day began, and some kind of serious wind. The sky was cloudless and the world was electric with the first strong feel of autumn, but we froze. Selah.

Beth worked that night, and Erin was immersed in a computer problem, so I watched Fantastic Four. I already ‘saw’ the movie, the quotes indicating that portions of the movie were missed due to intrusion of the sleep function. It is not a bad movie, it fulfills what it is, but it is not top of the class for superhero flicks. Let me count the ways…

The cast is okay. Everyone looks and acts like they should, tho Reed Richards comes across as more of a doofus than I remember from the comics. I was not a fan of the comic. Seems to me, among Marvels of the time, I liked Spiderman and Thor more.

Comics, and the resulting movies, spend way too much time explaining the super powers. And Marvel went that one further by applying halfassed psych re the pain of superherodom. Comics did/do not tend to have the tensile strength to support such inflection, so it all comes across as an awkward potpourri.

Plotwise, gotta have plot, our heroes plus their nemesis are in a space station that gets hit by a cosmic storm, and each mutates. Each mutation is different.

The Thing never made much sense. Is he a pile of rocks? How can he move, et cetera? As a challenge for make up artists he’s just a lot of worry.

Sue and Johnny Storm are both lively. Sue is played by Jessica Alba. This may be the only movie I have seen her in but, because she is such a brand name, I feel like I have been watching her movies for years. Read her as a toned down and saner Angelica Jolie. I got seven posters of her on my dorm wall, man.

I forget who plays Johnny Storm, but he has got it down. He’s brash and funny and Johnny Storm to a T. It seems like he should be better known, that I should know of more work by him, but I do not. I am willing to believe he is totally wasted (as I assume every actor in the movie is) in the GI Joe movie.

The movie rattles along well enough. It has all the needed elements, but lacks pizzazz. The Thing as outcast. Yawn. The love of Reed and Sue. Yawn. The terrifying revenge of Doctor Doom. Yawn. By the 3rd yawn, er well, I guess I dozed off. But it turns out our heroes did not need me: they defeated Doc Doom. Altho there is evidence that he will return. I do not really care. I just know that the physics and physiology of all of these heroes and villains needs more backbone, and I really do not buy Reed’s stretchiness. ‘Nuff said!

Today, perfecter than yesterday (less wind), we picked apples. I think we have been doing this for seven years now. I always thought it was one of those tiresome events that people feel they should enjoy but, in sooth, I love it. I love apple trees, I love apples, and autumn is the perfect time to be out and about. I took 250 pictures in the orchard, and ate 3 apples. Beth makes apple sauce, warms it, and puts it on cornbread. I make an apple pie thing. It is either Swedish or Norwegian apple pie (I do not use recipes much anymore) and consists of sliced apples covered with a mixture of flour, lots of sugar, lots of butter, walnuts and cinnamon. It is good stuff. Apples are good.

We got some cheese, Taleggio, and opened a bottle of Nackenheimer Kronenberg Kabinett, a German wine, and Erin had Whole Food’s Pomegranate Italian soda, whatever they call it (delicious). Beth’s birthday was yesterday, so this was part of that. A few pictures on Facebook, but you have to be my friend.