erik didriksen | bardcore

pop sonnets

by erik didriksen

 

carol ann duffy | pilate’s wife

Firstly, his hands - a woman's. Softer than mine,

with pearly nails, like shells from Galilee.

Indolent hands. Camp hands that clapped for grapes.

Their pale, mothy touch made me flinch. Pontius.

 

I longed for Rome, home, someone else. When the Nazarene

entered Jerusalem, my maid and I crept out,

bored stiff, disguised, and joined the frenzied crowd.

I tripped, clutched the bridle of an ass, looked up

 

and there he was. His face? Ugly. Talented.

He looked at me. I mean he looked at me. My God.

His eyes were eyes to die for. Then he was gone,

his rough men shouldering a pathway to the gates.

 

The night before his trial, I dreamt of him.

His brown hands touched me. Then it hurt.

Then blood. I saw that each tough palm was skewered

 

by a nail. I woke up, sweating, sexual, terrified. 

Leave him alone.I sent a warning note, then quickly dressed.

When I arrived, the Nazarene was crowned with thorns.

The crowd was baying for Barabbas. Pilate saw me,

looked away, then carefully turned up his sleeves

 

and slowly washed his useless, perfumed hands.

They seized the prophet then and dragged him out,

up to the Place of Skulls. My maid knows all the rest.

Was he God? Of course not. Pilate believed he was.

daniel antoniol | stealing the moon

 

@daniel_antoniol

martin gayford | what you need is a project

"Throughout the six or so decades of his career, he has been carried forward by recurrent gusts of enthusiasm. He likes to quote his erstwhile assistant Richard Schmidt, who used to say, 'What you need, David, is a project!' I know the feeling; I am a little aimless myself without a book to write and a subject to delve deeper into. I seem to need to be learning or doing something fresh; I suspect Hockney is the same."

from Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy

by Martin Gayford

anthony lane | dishing out prizes for movies

"Dishing out prizes for movies -- for making them and performing in them -- is a nonsense, and the effort to pretend otherwise becomes a little harder every year."

Anthony Lane

The New Yorker, Feb 14 & 21, 2022

arthur krystal | what america is about

They discuss it while a small TV overlooking the bar plays a live feed of a youngish Barack Obama delivering his election victory speech. When he gets to the part about America being one country, one community—out of many, one—Pitt’s character scoffs, “It’s a myth created by Thomas Jefferson . . . a rich wine snob who was sick of paying taxes to the Brits.” Pitt’s hard-bitten cynicism caps the film. “Don’t make me laugh,” he says. “I’m living in America, and, in America, you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now fucking pay me.”

He had never given much thought to what America was about. It was above his pay grade. Once, it had been about the old versus the young, about supporting the war in Vietnam or opposing it, but, with the televised killing of George Floyd, America had become a misfire, a moral mare’s nest. We’d found the secret portrait recording our sins: slavery, Jim Crow, our treatment of Chinese workers, Native Americans, unions, women. But it was still America, right? Give me liberty or give me death. Four score and seven years ago. Ask not what your country can do for you. “When the values go up up up / And the prices go down down down / Robert Hall this season / Will show you the reason / Low overheads.” Compared to murdering fucking Nazis and crazed, robotic Japanese soldiers, we were goddam saints. Anyway, what was he supposed to do about it? His skin puckered on the inside of his elbows, hair grew in his ears, dark spots mottled the backs of his hands—what do you call them? Liver spots, sun spots, age spots? Too many to know which were recent and which had been around a while. He should have taken pictures of them and dated each photo, so he could track their number and location, a chronological map that led to oblivion. In the meantime, noise. People wanting to wrap the country in a shroud and bury it—tearing down statues, renaming buildings and holidays, cancelling this person and that one, stopping the publication of a book because its author was accused of rape. Where was Kate Smith when you needed her? And what happens? Thousands of malevolent idiots storm the Capitol because a reckless lowlife narcissist pays them a little attention, making them feel they’re still protagonists in the nation’s history. Is this what America is about? A reign of error countered by a reign of terror? And everything playing out against a plague killing millions around the world. What did it all amount to? Maybe just numbers. Generations come and generations go, but space and dark matter abideth forever.

from What's the Deal, Hummingbird? by Arthur Krystal

The New Yorker, January 24, 2022

photo from Killing Them Softly

throwing the rulebook out the window

"Throwing the rulebook out the window is a slippery slope and it opens the door on a potential Pandora's box of sticky situations."

Yahoo! Sports

quoted in The New Yorker, March 12, 2012

photo | dan williams | osoyoos, march

not john cleese | uk raises alert level

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.”

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”

The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbor” and “Lose.”

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, mate”. Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!’, “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled”. So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level. 

sheenah pugh | sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,

sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;

elect an honest man, decide they care

enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.

Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go

amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

how the world began | solastalgia

 

Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald

pg 192

photo | grad, 1970

 

jim + nena (right)

'you are in no danger. i am an actor'

Found by Peter Church on a post - Granville Street, near Broadway.  

February 26, 2014

photos | kolmanskop, namibia | patterson, marom, omelyanchuk, van oosten, kerwin

Freeman Patterson 

Erez Marom

Andrey Omelyanchuk

Marsel Van Oosten

James Kerwin

fudge caskets in a dessert mausoleum

 

wunderkammer

 

jean louis garçon | enlightened

Last night on stage, 25 minutes after the play we're playing, power outage throughout the theater block. We stopped and then a bystander turned on his phone light, then another, then another and then full and they said "we see you well." And we played like that with the spectators who enlightened us. No music or effects since no power. The cut lasted for almost an hour and the public literally enlightened us at the end of our arm. Then the juice came back 15 mins before the end. The audience applauded us a lot. On the way out, in front of the theater, there were many left, big smiles on their faces and glitter in their eyes, because they knew we lived together, a unique moment! Long live the theater and the live show for the magic it closes. For those who want to see her.

La Pépinière Théâtre, Paris, France

feb 18 | letter to the editor of the new yorker

Subject: Your neighbours* to the north

Dear Mr Remnick,

There is a country just north of yours, called “Canada.”  Our nation’s capitol, which we refer to as “Ottawa,” is about a seven hour drive from New York, so I understand if that falls outside the purview of The New Yorker, or outside the interest of New Yorkers. But I feel it is worth mentioning that you have at least one reader who resides outside of Manhattan, and that reader wonders why there has been no mention in your publication of an unprecedented crisis in his country, the aforementioned “Canada."

Twenty-one days ago, a convoy of anti-vaccine, anti-government protestors occupied our nation’s capital.  There are many links with far right movements which, as I understand it, have been active in your country as well.  On February 14, the Prime Minister - which is kind of like your President, but different - invoked, for the first time in our nation’s history, the Emergencies Act, in order to remove the protestors; though about fify years ago his father, also a Prime Minister, used similar powers, the War Measures Act, to deal with Separatist extremists.   

Ottawa’s mayor declared a State of Emergency eleven days ago. Eight days ago Ontario’s Premier- which is kind of like the Governor of one of your state, but different - declared a provincial State of Emergency to end the “seige” of the nation’s capital.  On Tuesday of this week, the Ottawa Chief of Police resigned; on Wednesday, the police services board chair resigned her position; on Thursday, the newly appointed police chief withdrew from the position; these are rather concerning developments in current circumstances.

Late yesterday, a large police force began arresting the occupying protestors and towing their vehicles from the area of our nation’s Parliament - which is kind of like your Capitol Building in Washington D.C., but different. You might say that this three week occupation is kind of like the seige of your own Capitol about a year ago. But different. (For example, nobody killed anybody yet.  We are Canadian, after all.)

Our country, and our little national emergency, are different, yes.  But not insignificant.  Except, it seems, to the New Yorker.  

But still…  I would have thought this not-especially-violent little fracas might occasion at least passing interest.  Okay, maybe this will help.  This illegal political action, with the express purpose of removing our Prime Minister from office, is significantly funded by your countrymen - Americans  - who have also taken it upon themselves to help jam phone lines to the city’s 911 emergency telephone lines.  Americans.  Does that give you the angle you need?  I bet some of them even live in New York.  Oh, and their pals shut down the bridge between Detroit and Ontario, costing American automotive manufacturers tens of millions of dollars a day.  Americans and money.  Surely that?

Come on, Dave.  Throw us a bone.  At least pretend that this is as important as the monobob, or a six year old photo essay on Mexican commuters.  (Mexico!  That’s your other neighbour, even further from New York!  You can do this!)

Long-time subscriber,

Ron Reed

* “neighbours” - pretty much the same as your word “neighbors,” but different.  But not all that different.  I would have thought.

madness

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Allen Ginsberg." 

Madness

robert frost | acquainted with the night

 

carl jung | somebody who's tired and needs a rest...

I've realized that somebody who's tired and needs a rest 

and goes on working all the same 

is a fool. 

Carl Jung

I'm pretty sure my own tendency to just push on (and on, and on), working long past the point of feeling tired, has many times led to a kind of exhaustion that's really not good. Still...

"I've realized that somebody who's tired and needs a rest 

and goes on working all the same 

has a job." 

Ron Reed

I understand what Jung's saying. That said, if I hadn't spent a good part of the past thirty years doing the opposite of what Mr Jung prescribes, there might very well be no Pacific Theatre. I would have written no plays. I would have left rehearsal halfway through, many days - and, most other days, I would have had no one to rehearse with, because one or another of my fellow actors would have called it quits, depending on their own levels of energy. No grants would have been written, few budgets balanced. How many appointments would I have cancelled without notice, and how many others would I have walked out on midway through?

Muscles get built when you continue working them once they've tired. Character gets built when you do what needs doing, even though you'd rather do something else (like resting, for example). People get cared for in hospitals, artistic breakthroughs occur, crops get planted or harvested, children get fed and cleaned and loved, when people continue to do what they need to do even when they are absolutely bloody exhausted.

I'm glad I wasn't one of Carl Jung's patients. "Oh, doctor Jung won't be seeing you today. He prefers to have a rest."