Poem: The Porter Cat

soft and malleable;

I stroke the porter cat

when he lingers near the patio,

spreads his body on my lap and I tell him that he’s home;

his leonine form stretched from end to end;

he purrs with content      

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Movie Review: Adaptation of a Children's Classic Now on DVD

Whoop. Woot. Rawrr. Claw. Battle. Rumpus. Fantastical beasts. An omnipotent little boy. A busy mother. A boat. Feed me. Let the wild rumpus start!

Where the Wild Things Are is out on DVD. I remember vividly as a child reading Sendak’s book. The potent image in my mind is Max’s whiskers. And the almost excessive use of dark, black lines to form the outline of the bodies, the monsters, and the jungle-like setting. I appreciate Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the story and Karen O’s soundtrack. The film is true to the heart of the story. I recently saw the film Synecdoche, New York and realized that Jonze and Kaufmann are similar artists. Perhaps we forget that Kaufmann and Jonze are in similar camps. Both directors understand an adaptation of a book or a story for the film is not the same as a retelling of the story. The film of the Wild Things is not the book. It is something different. For example, in the film, Max is swallowed alive by one of the wild things as an act of protection but as well as a projection of the Freudian id. But its difference does not offend the original heart of Sendak’s story. The simple message of a boy's journey from raw emotion to belonging, the meal was still hot, is still intact. A must see. The film is in the spirit of “Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

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I Have No Idea What To Call This Rant

“I ate it, knowing the rabbit had sacrificed itself for me.  It had made me a gift of meat.” Maxine Hong Kingston.

In this post, I rant about education and I'm not sure what else.

Greig types on his old MacBook Pro:

In an ironic turn of events in the film Iris—about novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch (who consequently had a few things to say about education)—Murdoch stares at a television screen showing Tony Blair repeating, “education, education, education,” unable, in her final stage of dementia, to put coherent thoughts together (not that Blair was coherent in this scene, but that's another matter). Murdoch's lifelong career of dazzling prose diminished, in the end, to infantile babbling. I recently saw the film and read excerpts from her husband John Bayley's memoir. Murdoch was a philosopher and a poet who eloquently wrote about education, not as making a person happy, but as enabling them to see how they are happy. I liked the film because it depicted the life of a person dedicated to learning who tragically loses her wealth of knowledge due to Alzheimer's. Iris lived in her mind; she lost her treasure. John Bayley believed that even though the disease had ravaged his wife's memory, something "clear" and "pure" remained inside her mind. He supplied her with a pen and notebook paper, in case inspiration struck.

Movie Review: Club Silencio Scene "Llorando" Muholland Drive

Mulholland Drive by David Lynch is one reason why I increasingly favor film as a superior art form.

"Llorando" 

why you must see Lynch

A superb film depiction of the blurry divide between dream and reality:

      Mulholland Drive by David Lynch is one reason why I increasingly favor film as a superior art form. In this scene, a singer at Club Silencio (Rebekah Del Rio) sings "Lllorando," a turning point in the film's plot. The scene is a dividing line between the character Diane/Betty's dream world, and her awake world. When you see Betty's face, her tears, she realizes all has been a dream - the shocking intrusion of reality into her constructed fantasy world - and her coming to grips with her complicity in the murder of her unrequited lover and femme fatale Rita. When I watch this scene all the painful memories of past loves comes rushing into my body and I choke up. Notice at the end. The final sequence is important. The singer collapses (the dream has ended) but her voice remains (the fantasy persists). Both women cry. Diane/Betty reaches into her purse and pulls out the blue box; the blue box is the film's MacGuffin; the hidden object we desire to learn its meaning, but in the end rather meaningless. Similar to most dreams, I guess. The scene reminds me of a person who goes to bed with serious guilt in their heart; uses dreams to escape their guilt, but in the end, the dream collapses on itself and reveals nothing in the end, no salve to take away the irreparable act. The film is tragic in the end. I don't want to reveal too much ... you just gotta see this film.

Credits:

"Club Silencio"

Muholland Drive (2001) directed by David Lynch.

Laura Harring

Naomi Watts

Rebekah Del Rio

Digital Version

What is the Difference Between Immanence and Transcendence?: A Visual Philosophy Primer

Look at the two following details from 

School of Athens, Raphael, The Vatican

Raphael's mural "The School of Athens." In the first image, a depiction of Aristotle shows him thrusting his arm outward; while, in the latter picture, the figure of Plato points towards the heavens. What do these two images tell us about the interplay between what is at hand and what is out of reach?

Aristotle points his hand outward as a sign of immanence.

Plato points his index finger upward to the sky as a sign of transcendence.

credits: "The School of Athens." Raphael. The Yorck Project:10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202.

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Anatomy of a Scene: Au Revoir Les Enfants (Scene 20)

Movie Still - Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)

In Louis Malle's haunting autobiographical film, Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987), figures come out of the Northern European mist as if half-dead, draped in dark shrouds of black. The setting is not Auschwitz or the Western front, but a small Catholic boarding school outside of Paris, Winter 1944, months before the fall of the Third Reich. Malle's focus is not the battlefield, nor is it the concentration camp, but rather, he focuses his exploration on the effects of racism and evil on the lives of young French adolescent boys holed up in a confined space, apart from their upper-class parents. The school's headmaster, Father Jean, has decided to matriculate three new students at the start of the Winter term. What no one knows is that the three new students are, in fact, Jewish stowaways, hidden by the school to save their lives. In this scene (scene 20, according to Malle's screenplay), students are marching to the public baths for their periodic soapy wash. The scene is a mixture of everyday rituals of boarding school life, similar to other scenes in the film, of the boys sleeping, praying, attending class, playing war games, playing the piano, and taking tests. The "normal," almost painterly scenes are punctuated by news from the war zone: talk of hatred against Jews, the Resistance, French collaborators with the Germans, and the impending intimidation enforced by the conquering Germans. Rations are scarce. Even the wealthy schoolboys suffer; their only allowance is jam and sugar which they exchange for cigarettes. France is occupied by Germany but the Resistance is rumbling. News of German defeat on the Russian front has been circulating.

Quote from Walter Benjamin (Illuminations)

"The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up
at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again."

Walter Benjamin, Illuminations

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Photo Credit: pinterest
Benjamin, Walter, and Hannah Arendt. Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, 1986.

Excerpt from My Book of Essays Inspired by New Orleans and New York: "Turning Over a New Leafs [sic]"

Read the rest of the book here.

Setting a crate of laundry on top of the washing machine, I told my landlord, who happened to be standing at the doorway, "I'm turning over a new leafs - I mean, leaf -hah hah, I can't spell." He was doing his Sunday laundry chores as well, convivial as ever, and we were chatting about getting stuff done, the usual small talk between landlord and tenant. My landlord is a 40 something single man who runs his own non-profit; he has light brown hair, average build, and a pleasant smile. We barely see each other; mostly our meetings are necessitated by my late rent checks.

Prose Poem: Quote from My Moleskine

In this post, I include a prose poem fragment found in my Moleskine notebook.

A couple rides the New York City subway.

The empty tomb startles me as I know
it startled Mary

~#~

When wishing upon a star be sure to want what you really desire; for desire materializes

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Location:Cohn St, New Orleans,United States

New Orleans Park on the River: "The Fly"

In this post, I write about a favorite New Orleans drinking spot, crayfish eating spot, and park - The Fly.

A Google Maps Satellite Image of the Fly

Behind Audubon Park lies what locals call the "Fly." The park is a green space alongside the Mississippi River near the Riverbend and the park's terminus. My friend M. Introduced me to it. She was like, "You can take someone down to the fly, murder 'em, throw 'em in the water, and no one would ever know!" The fly is located beyond the levee near the Corps of Engineers headquarters and Children's hospital. An informer detailed an event she witnesses at the Fly. A woman in her mid-forties walked into the river's shore and popped a squat and let loose nature's rain. It was seen by one except the unlucky few who had sat on the Fly's inconspicuous rocky steps enwrapped in wire mesh. One other cool thing about the Fly is its perfect vantage point for watching international cargo ships parade by. One usually does not notice the city's ship traffic because of levy obstruction.

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Location:New Orleans, Louisiana

Sparkling New Streetcar Line on Loyola Avenue in New Orleans

Photo: wallyg

According to Frank Donze, reporting for the Times-Picayune, The Obama Administration approved stimulus money earmarked to construct a new transit line in the city of New Orleans. The city was awarded $45 million to erect the new streetcar line that will run from the Union Passenger Terminal on Loyola Avenue and end on Canal Street, a 1.5 mile stretch. Other routes had been considered by the administration, including a corridor along N. Rampart Street and a line stretching along Convention Center Boulevard (which are still in the works), but in the end, the Regional Transit Authority won the Loyola bid. A stipulation of the money was to enhance existing transit systems in an American city and to provide a connection to existing transit systems, so the New Orleans project seemed to have won the favor of the grant givers, winning out over 30 other cities. The city desperately needs a creative boost to its public transportation system and I am very happy the Federal money was won. RTA has until May 2012 to finish the project. So, wake up New Orleans and get your laissez-faire attitude up a notch.

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Born 1917 and Died 2 Jul 1930, Frederick "Freddie" Killman - A Family History Story

In this post, I write a personal family history story about Freddie Killman (my maternal great-uncle), a boy from New Orleans, Louisiana, who drowned in the Seabrook section of Lake Pontchartrain on July 2, 1930.

Family History is important to me and I think it is important to record stories we learn from our relatives. Here is a story about Frederick "Freddie" Killman, a boy who would have been my Great-Uncle, but tragically, he died when he was only a young teenager. Here is the story I gleaned from Killman family records, and oral history.


Frederick "Freddie" Killman (1917 - 1930)
Freddie was very precocious and loved to have fun. He was very different from his brother Hanky who was serious and hard working. His sisters Ida and Dot loved him and looked up to him. Freddie loved to go with his friends to the Lake Pontchartrain and swim. A man from the neighborhood would drive some of the local neighborhood boys to the lake to go for a swim without their parents always knowing about it.

One day Freddie came into the house and announced to the family that he needed some swim pants to go with his buddies to the lake. His mother, Albertine, was surprised, but let him go anyway. That was the last she ever saw of her son. Everybody knew that there was a deep end in the Lake Pontchartrain near People's Avenue and people were told not to go swimming too far out. Freddie was a mediocre swimmer but he was also a risk-taker so he and another boy ventured out further than they should have.

Freddie had gone with another boy from the neighborhood. Freddie was skinny and the other boy was fat. We don’t know what happened exactly but when somebody heard the cries for help they swam out to get the boys. Freddie was still alive when they got to him but he died at the hospital; his friend died too. Edward Spiehler was a witness to this event (Ida’s husband). Albertine was home frying frog legs, Freddie’s favorite. The girls and Francis were inside. Most of the neighborhood knew what had happened but no one wanted to tell the Killman’s the horrible news. Finally, a neighbor told Albertine and Francis what had happened.

Aunt Nen told me that her Dad didn’t say a word and just left the house. Albertine was left with the kids, so she brought them to a neighbor’s house while she went to see for herself what had happened. Both boys were buried at separate funerals and no one blamed anyone for the deaths. Still to this day, Ida remembers every detail of that day as if it happened yesterday. When she told me the story it made me cry but I realized how much she loved her family and our family. She wondered what her brother would have turned out like. Would he have been just as fun-loving as he was when he was a kid or would he have been serious and sensible?

Born 1917 and died 2 Jul 1930, Frederick Killman (Freddie) seen here on the right in the floodwaters of the 1927 flood in Gentilly, New Orleans with his buddy, René Alberta, who later died of food poisoning.

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