CONFLUENCE, COINCIDENCE

Some years back (too many to say, really), I wrote this poem that upon completion appeared to be subconsciously inspired by Tennessee Williams. Not that my words on paper resembled those of the master, but it was the vibe I felt while reading it back to myself.

Last night, I read an article about the influential director Douglas Sirk, who late in life made a short film of a one-act play by Williams called Talk to Me Like the Rain And Let Me Listen... which, while unfamiliar, immediately reminded me of my old poem. Why? Here's an excerpt from the opening stage direction:

On a folding bed lies a Man in crumpled underwear, struggling out of sleep with the sighs of a man who went to bed very drunk. A woman sits in a straight chair at the room's single window, outlined dimly against a sky heavy with a rain that has not yet begun to fall. The woman is holding a glass from which she takes small, jerky sips like a bird drinking.

The setting in the play is in a Manhattan apartment, while my poem (as I imagined it) takes place somewhere in the Deep South. And here, the man and woman are (presumably) married, as opposed to the father and daughter in my poem (though the use of the word "father" might not need to be taken literally in terms of their relationship). But the similarities--the diminished woman sitting near a window holding a glass, the rain, the wreck of a man waking up on the couch--were surprising.

Not the biggest coincidence I've ever encountered, but a nice excuse to visit an old friend. Here's the poem, with a few minor corrections/changes by a more critical hand:


TENNESSEE

The rails of the porch were raintipped;
she stood wirelipped
and grimaced at the grey on the horizon

a glass of lemonade sweats on the windowsill,
lipsticky on the rim:
a one-night-sip memento

she longed for the embrace of a velvet mist
but the sandpaper cyclone cut in

inside,
the fabric flutters
from the sideswipe of the breeze,
brushes Father's arm,
sleepnumb on the sofa

the woman in his dream glides closer
(with laugh of heliumed hyena);
he reaches out to pet her
and awakens caressing the drapes

outside,
she peers through the screen:
Father is startled and surly;
he barks for his pipe,
"and how 'bout a light?"
...she withdraws with the grace of the tide.



Boston, MA

Excerpt from "The Triumph of Bullshit", by T.S. Eliot:

Ladies, who find my intentions ridiculous
Awkward insipid and horribly gauche
Pompous, pretentious, ineptly meticulous
Dull as the heart of an unbaked brioche
Floundering versicles feebly versiculous
Often attenuate, frequently crass
Attempts at emotions that turn isiculous,
For Christ's sake stick it up your ass.

Favorite Films of 2009

Yes, it's halfway through February, but of course it takes TIME to get through everything that floods the gate at the end of the year. Some of the films mentioned may not have received a domestic release yet, but I'm including them anyway: 1. A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, USA) Winking into the abyss, probably their funniest and most thought-provoking film in quite some time. 2. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany/Austria) A disturbing work with a flawless ensemble cast that simultaneously obfuscates as it illuminates, and consequently one is left with quite a strange taste in the mouth afterwards, bitter and delicious. 3. Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola, USA/Argentina) An aging master looks energetically into the past, both personally and cinematically, with exciting nods to Fellini as well as Powell & Pressburger. 4. Bright Star (Jane Campion, Australia/UK) Restraint, delicacy, silence, textures, flora, the wind, and the word. An unfortunately overlooked flower in a year of loud spectacle. 5. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, USA) The sum of the parts is better than the whole, but on a scene-by-scene basis arguably the best writing and filmmaking of the year, an abundance of great acting, dialogue, and composition. 6. Thirst (Chan-wook Park, South Korea) The strangest thing I watched last year, a vampire story where the sexual and doomed romantic elements burst out of their cliched trappings to form something exciting and hilarious, and ultimately very moving. With a lot of blood. 7. Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan) A simple story about family, the generation gap, and the passage of time; nothing really new here but done in a classic style with the patience and attention to detail of the greats, specifically Ozu. Just about perfect. 8. Funny People (Judd Apatow, USA) Probably too long, but I wouldn't have wanted to cut any of it out, either. I laughed (harder and more often than any other time in recent memory), and I cared. 9. Avatar (James Cameron, USA) Flawed, but unforgettable nonetheless. You'd have to buy a tab of LSD to get more bang for your buck. 10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, USA) Not a diversion for Anderson but a continuation of his distinct take on dysfunctional families who put up with each other long enough to find out that they need each other. Such creativity and detail packed into every frame, beyond refreshing for the animation genre. Honorable mention: Two Lovers (James Gray, USA), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden), Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar, Spain), The Princess and The Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, USA), Adventureland (Greg Mottola, USA), The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam, UK), The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, USA), Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosowa, Japan), Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (Hiyao Miyazaki, Japan) Acting Citations: Vera Farmiga (Orphan), Abbie Cornish and Paul Schneider (Bright Star), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vinessa Shaw (Two Lovers), Michael Stuhlbarg and Fred Melamed (A Serious Man), Ok-bin Kim (Thirst), Kirin Kiki (Still Walking), Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces), Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Christopher Plummer (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), Melanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), Zoe Saldana (Avatar), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Souleymane Sy Savane (Goodbye Solo)