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A little bit of quiet to sustain the life
The major achievement of the day was getting out of the house for a walk, during which I memorialized this starfish-cluster of pinwheels, whose sunflowers no longer spin with the wind but scratch and rustle against the wood of the telephone pole, and this jauntily capped fire hydrant, whose weathered lichen-orange barrel I should like to capture in better light.
Otherwise I read the near-future anarcho-queer splatterfolk-in-verse of Valkyrie Loughcrewe's Crom Cruach (2022) and listened to its cinematically metallic soundtrack in between repeats of the Neolithic second line stomp of Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane's "Burial Blessing" (2023) and nearer the other end of my aesthetic interests sent my father the clip of Paul Robeson's "Ol' Man River" from James Whale's Show Boat (1936) because he had accidentally been exposed to Sinatra's performance of same in the finale of Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), a film I watched strictly for the supporting presence of Van Heflin, since watching it for the biography of Jerome Kern is a doomed and painful endeavor. Robeson exquisitely articulating the lyrics-in-dialect of the time is a classic demonstration of double consciousness, but the role of Joe had been written for him and Whale shoots him like a star, circling him in crane shot until settling on a close-up that cuts into a montage like an expressionist music video and still ends with Robeson himself, abandoning the deep-lunged lip-synching of playback for a sudden grin as off-kilter to the entire illusion of the musical as if he had taken a bow. I grew up on the version of the song he performed famously at Carnegie Hall in 1958 with his preferred, activist lyrics, but he's as young as I have ever seen him on film and so handsome and his voice arches like the counterswirl of the river. I had never heard his "Zog nit keyn mol" (1949) and despite the attribution to Warsaw instead of Vilna, since I got chills at dos lid gezungen mit naganes in di hent he was doing it right. Someday I will manage to see him in the Pool Group—H.D., Bryher, Kenneth Macpherson—'s Borderline (1930).
Otherwise I read the near-future anarcho-queer splatterfolk-in-verse of Valkyrie Loughcrewe's Crom Cruach (2022) and listened to its cinematically metallic soundtrack in between repeats of the Neolithic second line stomp of Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane's "Burial Blessing" (2023) and nearer the other end of my aesthetic interests sent my father the clip of Paul Robeson's "Ol' Man River" from James Whale's Show Boat (1936) because he had accidentally been exposed to Sinatra's performance of same in the finale of Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), a film I watched strictly for the supporting presence of Van Heflin, since watching it for the biography of Jerome Kern is a doomed and painful endeavor. Robeson exquisitely articulating the lyrics-in-dialect of the time is a classic demonstration of double consciousness, but the role of Joe had been written for him and Whale shoots him like a star, circling him in crane shot until settling on a close-up that cuts into a montage like an expressionist music video and still ends with Robeson himself, abandoning the deep-lunged lip-synching of playback for a sudden grin as off-kilter to the entire illusion of the musical as if he had taken a bow. I grew up on the version of the song he performed famously at Carnegie Hall in 1958 with his preferred, activist lyrics, but he's as young as I have ever seen him on film and so handsome and his voice arches like the counterswirl of the river. I had never heard his "Zog nit keyn mol" (1949) and despite the attribution to Warsaw instead of Vilna, since I got chills at dos lid gezungen mit naganes in di hent he was doing it right. Someday I will manage to see him in the Pool Group—H.D., Bryher, Kenneth Macpherson—'s Borderline (1930).
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How you gonna. Come on. In 1949 when they were still wishing German POWs a very Have some bread, we poisoned it for you!
Although I guess Hirsh was not there to speak for himself.
(That recording is incredible, and clearly!! they understood him in Moscow, and I wonder how it must have felt for Robeson, who didn’t have the right to anything but the struggle in his home country.)
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Well, he kept walking the road.
*hugs*
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Ugh, if we have to get back on the road, mir zaynen fucking do.
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He was amazing. Neruda said that he sang like the earth, like the beginning of the sea and of life. <3 I really like his version of "Los cuatro generales".
ETA: I hadn't heard of Borderline, so I got curious, and once again the IA delivered!
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Well, I'm not going to disagree with that.
I really like his version of "Los cuatro generales".
Yes! And his version of "Die Moorsoldaten," which I had not heard. My formative version was Theodore Bikel's.
ETA: I hadn't heard of Borderline, so I got curious, and once again the IA delivered!
w00t! I am so glad they are back up and performing their proper function in the film-watching world. I kept hoping for it to come around on the Criterion Channel since it's part of a Paul Robeson box set, but it criminally never has.
[edit] And in other gifts from the universe, your letter just arrived!
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I live roughly 3 blocks from Robeson House and frequently walk by this awesome Robeson mural: https://www.muralarts.org/blog/honoring-activism-look-four-philly-murals-pay-tribute-local-activists/
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He sings it like a partisan song.
I live roughly 3 blocks from Robeson House and frequently walk by this awesome Robeson mural
That is spectacular and deserved. More cities should have a four-story Paul Robeson.
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I have seen Borderline, but so long ago, I should really watch it again. (It's on YouTube as well.)
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I feel I should have guessed that he would sing it, but I wouldn't have guessed in Yiddish, in Moscow, for the first time. It is magnificent.
I have seen Borderline, but so long ago, I should really watch it again. (It's on YouTube as well.)
Sweet! I'm glad it's so readily available.
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Thank you! I love the way they cling.
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I'd never heard of Robeson before last year but he was clearly an amazing person.
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He was a titan. I recommend pretty much any recording you can find of his. His filmography was limited by both racism and blacklist, but I still hope to see more of it.