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WARS & PIECES |
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On this day in 1844 "The Day
of the Second Coming " prophesied by William Miller comes and goes.. His followers
are not discouraged and go on to form The Seventh Day Adventist Church. 1859: Spain
declares war on the Moors in Morocco and in 1862 an army revolt in Athens forces King Otto
the 1st to resign.
Moving on to 1883 it’s the first opening night at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
The bill of fare is Gounod’s Faust. In 1885 poet Arthur Rimbaud goes off to become a
gunrunner for King Menelik of Shoe. Unimpressed Verlane writes his "Ode to a Dumb
Lover Who Will Probably get his Ass Shot off." 1938: Chester F. Carlson is finding it
hard to get investors for his new machine called Xerox. It produces copies of images.
Today in 1962 JFK announces that USSR missile bases have been built in Cuba and in 1964
Jean Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He declines saying "A
writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution". In 1967
The Eliat, an Israeli destroyer, is sunk off the coast of Sinai by Egyptian missiles. More
than 40 are killed.
1977: A new film, The Swarm, opens nationally. Says producer Irwin Allen (famous for The
Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno),"The Swarm" is going to be the most
terrifying movie ever made." The New York Times describes it as "the surprise
comedy of the season". The great French impressionist Paul Cézanne died in 1906, as
did cellist Pablo Casals in 1973 and historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee in 1975.
At my house right now Johnny Mercer is on the phonograph warbling "Bob White, Whatcha
Gonna Swing Tonight" and I hope you’re having a marvelous Mercer Thursday
evening too.
- RM 10/15/98 |
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Constance Bennett o
Sarah Benhardt o Catherine Deneuve o Joan Fontaine o
Annette Funicello o Jeff Goldblum o Timothy Leary o Charles Marie Leconte de Lisle o Doris Lessing o
Franz List o Dory Previn o Robert Rauschenberg o Tony Roberts o
Leon Trotsky |
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We’d salvage
much and save on doctor bills, if we paused to read instructions.
Everything we do or say must be considered as only a moment in
a continuing tradition; otherwise tradition dies.
We may have come a long way, but we will always have a longer
way to go.
Some people mistake patience for intellect. |
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SUPPER |
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All hills and gullies
mounds and
little mountains
you rise up early
in the night
In dreams so real
that sleep and waking
meet, dissolve and blur.
A sacrament you are
made of salt
and tasting not unlike
cinnamon or soda water
as I pull you to me.
A meal you are.
A meal you make of me.
We devour
one the other
as though we were
some hungry giants
having fasted
all the winter
hungry now for spring.
I see no end
to this stored-up appetite
this emptiness
that only loving
up and down a lifetime
will fill
up.
I have wished too much
or just enough
to bring you here
almost to the final step.
One meter gone
or one mile away
you are
just out of reach
or too near
to make perspective work.
- from the album "Sleep Warm", 1974. |
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