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10/17/2017 0 Comments Chilly weather It's been a long time since I watched The Big Chill. I first saw it in college and I never dreamed that someday I would be one of those people. Scratch that, I'm older now than they were then. For them, fifteen years had passed since college. For me, it's a hello of a lot longer.
If my numbers add up, they were the class of '68. Fifteen years later, ten years after the movie, I was the class of '93. And now it's 2017. It's edging close to 25 years. One of my friends turned 27 last week. That was a punch in the gut. (btw, happy birthday, Sam. I didn't have a chance to tell you on the actual day.) For the characters in the film, in 1983, the hits of Motown and the late '60s were nostalgic. A few weeks ago, I was listening to music with a couple of my friends (one of whom is the afformentioned 27-year-old) and it hit me again that the songs I grew up with in the '80s are now considered classic rock. And sometime along the way I got old. My hair is thinning. My beard comes in gray. I'm a modern-day J. Alfred Prufrock. And to answer his question, I don't dare. But that's not the point. I watch this movie and I'm back in my dorm room wondering why it took me so long to see this movie, then I'm back here wondering why it took me so long to see it again. And through it all I'm seeing the faces of the people I loved back then. We drifted apart but I see them now on social media and they look the same as they did back then. They're happy, they're successful, they're well-adjusted. I guess I'm kind of jealous. Halfway into the movie and it's not what I remember. It's actually hilarious and pathetic, not dramatic, and every time it starts to drag me down into the maudlin nearing-middle-age blues somebody says something funny and it's right back to happy town. Lawrence Kasdan, I admire you for Empire, Jedi and Raiders but I am in awe of you for The Big Chill. The best part of rewatching a movie like this is also the worst part. For a couple of hours I got to spend time with old friends and then they're gone again. Old memories come back unbidden but will not depart so easily. A future I used to fear becomes a past I wish I had known.
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10/4/2017 0 Comments Two: up yours, Horace Greeley I was in a meeting this afternoon, hearing about changes to insurance and the new hoops we have to jump through to qualify for a discount, and a thought came to me and stayed there.
What, I thought, if I started out walking some weekend and kept going? West, I thought, that's the way to go. Start off on the OHT and go to the end, and then don't stop. Tramp through Oklahoma and keep going. Follow the Joads. Follow Sal Paradise even if I don't have Dean Moriarty to keep me company. Travel without Charley. Look for the blue highways. Could I do it? Could I leave the world I know behind and start off on some damn fool idealistic trip to find the American Dream? Yes, I think I could. But it's not easy in the early 21st century. I don't think you can jump a freight train bound for parts unknown anymore. You certainly can't hitchhike. In this day and age you're more likely to step on a rainbow than to step on the golden road. You have to pay bills, pay taxes, pay utilities, pay for the luxury of having things. That doesn't sound like a dream to me. So could I do it? Damn right. And every day I go to work and put up with life and come home and every moment of that day just leads me closer to the road. I'm reminded of the character Slim Pickens played in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid": "One of these days,|when I get my boat built, I'm gonna drift out of this damn territory." I can live with that. To paraphrase (or is it intentionally misquote?) Andrew Marvell: "Had we but time enough, and world..."--I've always valued time more than anything else. It's easy enough to find more world, but it's hard as hell to find more time. I've been getting younger for a couple of months, but I think maybe I'll try getting a couple of decades older to see how it feels. Hopefully there's a CTRL-Z to temporal modification.
***** I've always been a great one to avoid problems or ignore them. But only recently have I started walking away from them. Literally. Walking far away. I think I might be getting close to triple digits, considering I'm doing double digits every time I can. But it's not helping. ***** A few weeks (months?) back, I was well into a good sweaty walk when a friend texted me, asking what I was doing. "Three miles into a four mile walk" I told him. "Why the sudden interest in walking?" "It's my penance." "Penance for what?" "What have you got?" He didn't text back. **** It's the mood swings I can't handle. One day I feel invincible, the next defeated. If I could stick with one or the other I'd be fine, but my brain just won't let me. Honestly, I'd be happy if I could just stay sad and not have to deal with the occasional glimmer of false hope. ***** Sitting here slightly drunk and thining about life, settling into a very nice deep depression, poetry is never far from my ind. I'm reminded of a few lines from Poe: Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore-- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Nameless here for evermore. --The Raven And that leads me for some unknown and ineffable memory to the poet Sappho of Lesbos: Come then, I pray, grant me surcease from sorow, Drive away care, I beseech thee, O goddess Fulfil me for what I yearn to accomplish. Be thou my ally. --Hymn to Aphrodite I.vii and that inevitably forces the back of my brain to remember Catullus, Poem V: Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis. soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum, dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum. I'm not going to translate that because far better men than I have far better words in which to express it. I honestly feel that poetry is the true language of love and inebriation. Love is much more potent a libation than the finest whisky. I admit that I was in love once, maybe twice, and thinking about my utter failure in those pursuits brings me right back to possibly my favorite poem of all time, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot and the line that, ultimately, sums up my life: And in short, I was afraid. |
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