sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2016-04-25 01:40 pm

An interesting fossil for future study

1. My poem "In a Funny Kind of Way" is now online at Polu Texni: A Magazine of Many Arts. It was directly inspired by The Petrified Forest (1936) and takes its title from a line spoken by Leslie Howard's drifter to Bette Davis' artistic, ambitious waitress: "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps we will be happy together, in a funny kind of way." His own death is contained in that agreement, but she has no reason to suspect it—he always sounds ironic, unserious, double-speaking. He's my favorite character in the movie, but if I were Davis, I'd have been furious with him. I might be anyway.

(The illustration is August Macke's Gorge (Schlucht), done in watercolor when he was in Tunisia with Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet in 1914, and I love it.)

2. I had noticed that it is now possible to get schmaltz in restaurants, but I thought it was just Bronwyn: I didn't realize that Ashkenazi food was undergoing a revival. I will have to pick up Michael Wex's new book. I don't want to be reminded that his Born to Kvetch (2005) currently lives in a box with the rest of my library, but it's terrific.

3. This is exactly what happens when I try to take my leave of Autolycus. His eyes are greener, of course. He is a very good cat.

4. I have also been sending this video of a very conscientious kitten to people who need de-stressing.

5. Damn it, Brattle, please show Psycho (1960) some weekend other than Mother's Day. It's a digital screening, so I don't have to care quite so much, but I am beginning to feel that my desire to see this movie in a theater without irony constitutes an actual quest. Everyone has to have one, I guess, but I always thought mine would involve more dead languages and less junk psychology.

I need to review some movies. I need to get some regular sleep. Last week was a disaster: I got eight and a half hours on Friday night after the seder, but the next night I was kept awake by pain until well into the morning. I didn't have good dreams last night, but I had dreams, so that had better count for something.