{"id":11961,"date":"2012-10-19T12:07:07","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T16:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11961"},"modified":"2012-10-24T10:17:25","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T14:17:25","slug":"shadows-over-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/shadows-over-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadows Over Stuff<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“It’s me. I was just calling to tell you that there is a big white cloud coming.”
\nCartoon by French cartoonist Voutch, from his 2007 collection, <\/em>This Is as Bad as It Gets. (Click to enlarge.)<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

From Here to Eternity<\/strong><\/p>\n

One day you wake up
\nand your life is over.
\nBut it doesn’t mean
\nyou have to die.
\nIt means last October was yellower
\nthan this, and this the yellowest
\nanyone can remember.
\nIt means you have produced enough tears
\nto fill, to one-eighth of an inch
\nof the top, Lake Baikal,
\nand now someone would like to swim.
\nIt means what it meant
\nto listen to the teacher
\ntell the story of Dante and Beatrice
\nand break down crying in the middle,
\nbecause his wife was taken away by the police
\nlast night, you so happy
\nto be dismissed early
\nyou and your pals broke out
\na pack of cards on the tram.
\nIt means you are more interested
\nin the shadows of objects than objects
\nthemselves, and if asked to draw anything
\nyou would only need charcoal
\nto convince the world
\nit is waiting, in the shadows
\nof things, and you will wait back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Ruefle [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things. When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(R. H. Blyth, from Haiku<\/em>, Vol. 1)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Perhaps the whisper was born before lips,
\nAnd the leaves in treelessness circled and flew,
\nAnd those, to whom we impart our experience as bliss,
\nAcquire their forms before we do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Osip Mandelstam, from “Octaves: 7” \u00a0[source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

An ICF was an Imaginary Childhood Friend, those pretend friends one sometimes has when a child. Contrary to popular belief, they don\u2019t go away when no longer required; they simply wander the earth until their host dies. They share common DNA with fictional people like the [Wing Commander] in that they are constructs of the human mind — living stories, if you like. Because of this they are quite visible to fictional people and, on occasion, to us as something normally dismissed as “ghosts” or “a trick of the light.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died A Lot: A Thursday Next Novel<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am so young that I am still in love
\nwith Battle Creek, Michigan: decoder rings,
\nsubmarines powered by baking soda,
\nwhistles that only dogs can hear. Actually,
\nnot even them. Nobody can hear them.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Hill from next door is hammering
\non our front door shouting, and my father
\nin his black and gold gangster robe lets her in
\ntrembling and bunched up like a rabbit in snow
\npleading, oh I’m so sorry, so sorry,<\/em>
\nso sorry<\/em>, and clutching the neck of her gown
\nas if she wants to choke herself. He said <\/em>
\nhe was going to shoot me. He has a shotgun <\/em>
\nand he said he was going to shoot me.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have never heard of such a thing. A man
\nwanting to shoot his wife. His wife.
\nI am standing in the center of a room
\nbarefoot on the cold linoleum, and a woman
\nis crying and being held and soothed
\nby my mother. Outside, through the open door
\nmy father is holding a shotgun,
\nand his shadow envelops Mr. Hill,
\nwho bows his head and sobs into his hands.<\/p>\n

A line of shadows seems to he moving
\nacross our white fence: hunched-over soldiers
\non a death march, or kindly old ladies
\nin flower hats lugging grocery bags.<\/p>\n

At Roman’s Salvage tire tubes
\nare hanging from trees, where we threw them.
\nIn the corner window of Beacon Hardware there’s a sign:
\nWho has 3 or 4 rooms for me. Speak now.<\/span>
\nFor some reason Mrs. Hill is wearing mittens.
\nClosed in a fist, they look like giant raisins.
\nIn the Encyclopaedia Britannica Junior<\/em>
\nthe great Pharoahs are lying in their tombs,
\nthe library of Alexandria is burning.
\nSomewhere in Cleveland or Kansas City
\nthe Purple Heart my father refused in WWII
\nis sitting in a Muriel cigar box,
\nand every V-Day someone named Schwartz
\nor Jackson gets drunk and takes it out.<\/p>\n

In the kitchen now Mrs. Hill is playing
\ngin rummy with my mother and laughing
\nin those long shrieks that women have
\nthat make you think they are dying.<\/p>\n

I walk into the front yard where moonlight
\ndrips from the fenders of our Pontiac Chieftain.
\nI take out my dog whistle. Nothing moves.
\nNo one can hear it. Dogs are asleep all over town.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(B. H. Fairchild [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

General Motti:\u00a0<\/strong>[speaking of the Death Star]<\/em>\u00a0Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they’ve obtained. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe! I suggest we use it.<\/p>\n

Darth Vader:<\/strong>\u00a0Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet, or even a whole system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0(1977))<\/p>\n

The puzzle box that was\u00a0Pulp Fiction<\/em> included dozens of chiaroscuroed little corners, including certain moments in\u00a0the soundtrack. That soundtrack famously (albeit briefly) kick-started the languishing surf-music genre — the rollicking\u00a0guitar-and-horn-driven sound of\u00a0performers like Dick Dale. And in general, it mapped to the tempos and tones of the interweaving plotlines. Now, for obvious reasons (hey, it WAS a Tarantino film), associating the film with noise and bursts of violent action comes naturally to most people. But a few deceptively quiet moments are scattered throughout, too: “deceptively,” because they had the (temporary) effect of anesthetizing you to what had just come before, and what was about to erupt.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite such moments features Bruce Willis as aging boxer Butch. The night before, he’d refused to throw a fight (although he’d already been paid to throw it), and the gangster who put the money up has sicced a paid killer on him. Butch has just met the killer and has, let’s say, resolved that issue<\/em>. Full of himself, believing that he’s about to get out of town safely, he’s\u00a0at the wheel of a tiny little car, singing along with a genial little ditty on the radio…<\/p>\n

…unaware that things are about to go terribly, terribly wrong (and not just for him).<\/p>\n

The little ditty in question: 1965’s “Flowers on the Wall,” by the Statler Brothers:<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>Flowers on the Wall. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:25 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:flowersonthewall_statlerbrothers.mp3|titles=’Flowers on the Wall’|artists=Statler Brothers]<\/div>\n

[Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

For the heck of it, here’s that scene from the film:<\/p>\n