Monthly Archives: October 2016

Detachable Penis

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My penis was getting bigger, right before my eyes, beyond anything I had experienced, massive, towering, suddenly like a god, too much. And right then, that moment, decided to separate itself. Detachable PenisI held on, amazed, scared of how I would re-attach it, of my growing worship of the thing. I pulled up to the tip and saw it looking back, eyeing me, and then surged from me and was at the window, waiting to be let out. Detachable PenisI watched it dash, flying, sleek into the night. I was worked up, very worked up and had to get that feeling out. My penis, the one left behind, was thin and rigid, like a small branch. It felt awful. It was erect, but girthless. I tried to get it to fill in. Detachable PenisThe screen saver on my computer started popping up old porn of me, a highlight reel, and I couldn’t get it to stop. There were people in the room, an old friend who hadn’t spoken to me in years.

“Nice.” He didn’t care that the videos kept popping up, my nakedness, my old penis, and all of those others, naked with me. Detachable PenisHe didn’t care that I was embarrassed by all of these secreted images playing one on top of the other; he thought it was impressive. But I had to get up. My old penis was out there and I needed it back.

Ice Friday: Hemingway’s “The Three-Day Blow”

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Ernest Hemingway’s terse, humorous style verges on revelatory:

Nick came in carrying the log and Bill got up from the chair and helped him put it on the fire.

“That’s a swell log,” Nick said.

“I’d been saving it for the bad weather,” Bill said. “A log like that will burn all night.”

“There’ll be coals left to start the fire in the morning,” Nick said.

“That’s right,” Bill agreed. They were conducting the conversation in the high plane.

“Let’s have another drink,” Nick said.

Bill poured out the drink.20150712_214923

“That’s an awfully big shot,” Nick said.

“Not for us, Wemedge,” Bill said.

“What’ll we drink to?” Nick asked, holding up the glass.

“Let’s drink to fishing,” Bill said.

“All right,” Nick said. “Gentlemen, I give you fishing.”

“All fishing,” Bill said. “Everywhere.”

“Fishing,” Nick said. “That’s what we drink to.”

How Nobel Is Mr. Zimmerman?

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Bob Dylan, awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, has decided to ignore the honor. Wow! I mean, right!? Everybody Must Get Stoned! How Nobel Is Mr. Zimmerman?Bob Dylan excuse me, I mean Mr. Robert Zimmerman, is like a god! Literally so. The man just shrugs off what everyone else on this planet accepts, all of those pathetic dogs: Alice Munro, Jose Saramago, Gunter Grass, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett. How Nobel Is Mr. Zimmerman?Come on, Robert Zimmerman is so much more gifted, right? Waiting for Godot? As if. Blindness? Huh? The Flounder? Come on! What are they going on about? All you have to do is listen to Robert:

She speaks with a stutter and she walks with a hop
I don’t know why I love her but I just can’t stop.

The great thing about all of this is that Robert is sticking it to those elitist royals in Sweden. Sticking it to them! He’s speaking out on behalf of his downtrodden American brethren – so many ignored over the years – leaving us in glorious silence to consider his lyrical awesomeness:

I know all about poison, I know all about fiery darts,
I don’t care how rough the road is, show me where it starts

Or maybe it’s actually bigger than that. Maybe Robert is gone. Hasn’t everyone else died this year? Maybe they’re covering that up until Robert can figure out how to reincarnate. I mean, if anyone can pull off the Lazarus gig, it’s Robert fuckin’ Dylan Zimmerman.

Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers

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The Battle of Algiers is known for its neorealism, cinema verite as they say, images so real that we have to be told they’re not.

BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Its strength, however, lies not only in its images.

Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

But in its development of a central theme: our inherent inhumanity to one another.

Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

The chaos of knowing that.
Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

And that it will never change.Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

Everything Else is a Distraction

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I need something that makes sense, that will make me whole. These words, that’s what I want. Need is the word. imag0027I think of it as simple, straight, nothing else in my head. It is why I get up, stand in the room, move through the streets, reach out to drink. 20151205_162003And while I’m trying to keep the eggs evenly out, this is it: a stream of words, where I’m turning and move like I know, inciting right, others assent and are stirred. coffinrockIt’s not that none of the rest matters but that I lose the sense of what really is, what it might be, important made nothing and nothing jacked up, so that I don’t know what I’m doing and may seem like I’m screwing the wind. Everything else is distraction. 20150224_171209Yeah, like I’m doing now, a direction, something clear, words published, understood, stamped forward. 20150702_102837Yeah, that’s it. That.

Homeless in a Box

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Two homeless men, young, lay side by side in matching boxes, asleep in the dull rising light. The shallow boxes, flat and wide, looking like they had just been delivered for the morning rush, gave no warmth or shelter, no comfort of any kind, just a lip, an edge a few inches up, as if it might keep the bugs and dust out. I had walked almost a full block past before I realized I had to go back to take a picture.

It was a funny image, striking how they looked they had been delivered and slept so soundly for the people streaming past. I had my camera out as I turned around for the shot and saw the young man was awake. Homeless in a BoxI was caught in an awkward stance, looking down at him, mocking him, and dropped my arms and continued past.

“Yeah, that’s right.” The young man muttered after my receding steps. “No pictures.”

The Cattle Drive in Howard Hawks’ “Red River”

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It’s not the story nor the setting nor even characters that make Howard Hawks’ 1948 Red River an epic, but the images of the cattle drive.The Cattle Drive in Howard Hawks' "Red River"

A herd of 9,000 used in shooting this iconic story element. The Cattle Drive in Howard Hawks' "Red River"Nothing compares to these images throughout the 133-minute film.Red River

The Cattle Drive in Howard Hawks' "Red River"

Except maybe Montgomery Cliff sucking poison out of Joanne Dru’s shoulder.The Cattle Drive in Howard Hawks' "Red River"

That’s pretty good too.

Ice Friday: Samuel Beckett’s “Neither”

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to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither

as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close, once away turned from gently part again

beckoned back and forth and turned away

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the otherimg_4584

unheard footfalls only sound

till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other

then no sound

then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither

unspeakable home

The Failure of Parker’s “Birth of a Nation”

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Birth of a Nation had promise – a compelling narrative most of all – but fails. Instead of exploring the contorted depths of American history, Parker trains the camera on himself, too often in close-up, reacting to repetitive brutality. The Failure of Parker's Birth of a NationViolent images dominate – people’s teeth getting hammered out, exposed brains – when  the story of a remarkable man, Nat Turner, could have been developed, asking who really spoke of this: As we pushed on to the house, I discovered some one run round the garden, and thinking it was some of the white family, I pursued them, but finding it was a servant girl belonging to the house, I returned to commence the work of death. The Failure of Parker's Birth of a NationThe film does not elucidate nor does it have vision, as did Steve McQueen in 12 Years a Slave, but is solely a chronicle of violence, flat and tediously rendered, craft-less as anything of the Superhero genre.