REASONS FOR LIVING: DECEMBER 10 2009

THE CIRCUS - CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Never seems to come up much in discussion of Chaplin, a really funny movie, with perhaps the most astonishing image I've ever seen in a Chaplin movie, the finale where the Circus train speeds away, leaving the Tramp behind in the center of the traces of the Circus Ring. A bittersweet punctuation on the end of the silent era, the end of vaudeville, the end of the golden age of comedy.

ELVIS PRESLEY - THAT'S SOMEONE YOU NEVER FORGET


Written by Red West based on something Elvis said, may be The King's most haunting record. A hymn to his dead mother.

GREAT JONES STREET - DON DELILLO
Pee-pee-maw-maw

THE RANDYS
The best band in Columbus, Ohio, but you aren't gonna find another band like this anywhere. Romantic without being schmaltzy, harmonies like clouds of perfume, a crowd full of girls in pretty dresses dancing, actually dancing.

THE DICTIONARY
Frank O'Hara supposedly read a page every day. I thought that sounded like a good idea, so I started. Try it. It's a weird experience.

MERLE HAGGARD
The guy invented the identity that essentially every male country singer utilizes today: rich baritone, twangy guitar, bump-chicka bump-chicka beat, songs about America, hard work, and drinking. Great because you can't really call him one thing or the other. His beliefs are complicated and his music is deceptively simple.

Two quotes and a poem by Rimbaud

These are absolutely true to me.

"The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping."
-Stuart somebody

"A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and finds endless ways to squander it."
-Don Delillo


Novel

I.

No one's serious at seventeen.
--On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
--You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.

Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
The wind brings sounds--the town is near--
And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . .

II.

--Over there, framed by a branch
You can see a little patch of dark blue
Stung by a sinister star that fades
With faint quiverings, so small and white. . .

June nights! Seventeen!--Drink it in.
Sap is champagne, it goes to your head. . .
The mind wanders, you feel a kiss
On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .

III.

The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels
--And when a young girl walks alluringly
Through a streetlamp's pale light, beneath the ominous shadow
Of her father's starched collar. . .

Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,
She turns on a dime, eyes wide,
Finding you too sweet to resist. . .
--And cavatinas die on your lips.

IV.

You're in love. Off the market till August.
You're in love.--Your sonnets make Her laugh.
Your friends are gone, you're bad news.
--Then, one night, your beloved, writes. . .!

That night. . .you return to the blinding cafés;
You order beer or lemonade. . .
--No one's serious at seventeen
When lindens line the promenade.

I misunderstood this poem. I thought it was about being 17 and getting drunk and trying to get laid. I guess it's about the way I should be living my life rather than the way I actually am.