Think You Know What’s Coming?

From whiskey river:

If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next — if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions — you’d be doomed. You’d be as ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You’d never love anyone, ever again. You’d never dare to.

(Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin [source])

…and, from the whiskey river archives (the commonplace book):

How Much Happens in a Day

In the course of a day we shall meet one another.

But, in one day, things spring to life —
they sell grapes in the street,
tomatoes change their skin,
the young girl you wanted
never came back to the office.

They changed the postman suddenly.
The letters now are not the same.
A few golden leaves and it’s different;
this tree is now well off.

Who would have said that the earth
with its ancient skin would change so much?
It has more volcanoes than yesterday,
the sky has brand-new clouds,
the rivers are flowing differently.
Besides, so much has come into being!
I have inaugurated hundreds
of highways and buildings,
delicate, clean bridges
like ships or violins.

And so, when I greet you
and kiss your flowering mouth,
our kisses are other kisses,
our mouths are other mouths.

Joy, my love, joy in all things,
in what falls and what flourishes.

Joy in today and yesterday,
the day before and tomorrow.

Joy in bread and stone,
joy in fire and rain.

In what changes, is born, grows,
consumes itself, and becomes a kiss again.

Joy in the air we have,
and in what we have of earth.

When our life dries up,
only the roots remain to us,
and the wind is cold like hate.

Then let us change our skin,
our nails, our blood, our gazing;
and you kiss me and I go out
to sell light on the roads.

Joy in the night and the day,
and the four stations of the soul.

(Pablo Neruda; translation by Alastair Reid [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Picking Up

During the depression
my mother, teetotaler,
but thrifty to a fault,
surprised my father and me
when she cobbled up a still,
kept it on a shelf behind the kitchen stove,
and salvaged a crate of too-ripe pears
by making brandy, pouring it into Mason jars,
and storing them on the cellar stairs.

When my father found a better job at last,
and movers came one day to move our stuff,
“A shame to have this go to waste,” we heard my mother say,
offering them the brandy, which they polished off.
They soon grew happy at their work,
hanging a chamber pot and her Sunday dress
on outside panels of their battered truck
and speeding off into the dusk
before she could protest.

We closed the house, cranked the Model-A, and started out,
following over stony mountain ruts,
but soon were stopping now and then
when headlights showed familiar shapes
lying in the road or ditch: first
the chamber pot and dress; next,
a chair, a bucket, and a box of sheets.
But drunk with hope, we praised our luck,
sang “Bringing in the Sheaves”
as we collected what the truck had dropped.

(Evelyn Duncan [source])

…and:

Neurological processes in one of the most primitive parts of the brain, the amygdala, happen so fast that one could say they compete with bullets… The amygdala is fast but very limited; all it can do is trigger a reflex and wait for the conscious mind to catch up. That reaction is called the startle, and it is composed of protective moves that would be a good idea in almost every situation. When something scary and unexpected happens, every person does exactly the same thing: they blink, crouch, bend their arms, and clench their fists. The face also sets itself into what is known as a “fear grimace”: the pupils dilate, the eyes widen, the brow goes up, and the mouth pulls back and down. Make that expression in front of a mirror and see not only how instantly recognizable it is, but also how it seems to actually produce a sense of fear. It’s as if the neural pathways flow in both directions, so the expression triggers fear as well as being triggered by it.

(Sebastian Junger, War)

In the final scene of Robert Altman’s Nashville, a single unnerving moment completely upends the lives of the film’s many characters. One manages to turn that moment to a sort of triumph: Winifred, a/k/a “Albuquerque” — the sad beautiful-loser of a woman played by Barbara Harris — who’s suddenly pushed to the foreground and handed a mike. In the well-edited video below, Albuquerque’s performance provides the backdrop behind a montage of clips; in the film, her audience willingly joins in, already papering over their horror (lyrics below):

(As an aside: the music and lyrics of “It Don’t Worry Me” are by Keith Carradine, who also wrote for the film “Honey” and the Oscar-winning “I’m Easy.”)

Lyrics:

It Don’t Worry Me
(music and lyrics by Keith Carradine; performance by Barbara Harris)

They say this train don’t give out rides,
it don’t worry me
In all the world, is taking sides,
it don’t worry me
Because in my empire life is sweet,
just ask any bum you meet
And you may say that I ain’t free,
but it don’t worry me

Everybody sing,
It don’t worry me!

You may say that I ain’t free,
but it don’t worry me.
C’mon everybody…

It don’t worry me,
it don’t worry me,
you may say that I ain’t free
but it don’t worry me

The price of bread may worry some,
it don’t worry me

Tax relief may never come,
it don’t worry me

Economy’s depressed not me,
my spirit’s high as they can be
and you may say that I ain’t free,
but it don’t worry me

It don’t worry me,
(c’mon everybody)
it don’t worry me,
you may say that I ain’t free
but it don’t worry me

It don’t worry me…

You may say that I ain’t free,
but it don’t worry me

It don’t worry me none,
it don’t worry me,
you may say that I ain’t free,
but it don’t worry me…