dual personalities

Yesterday morning they were cutting down trees somewhere in my neighborhood and grinding up the branches into mulch for hours on end. That has to be one of the most stressful sounds one can be forced to listen to I think. I mean it’s not like having your apartment building collapse underneath you, but seriously, I loathe it.

Anyway, I took out my latest book purchase, Selected Poems by Jorge Luis Borges, and started to read.

Camden, 1892

The smell of coffee and the newspapers,
Sunday and its lassitudes. The morning,
and on the adjoining page, that vanity—
the publication of allegorical verses
by a fortunate fellow poet. The old man
lies on a white bed in his sober room,
a poor man’s habitation. Languidly
he gazes at his face in the worn mirror.
He thinks, beyond astonishment now: that man
is me, and absentmindedly his hand
touches the unkempt beard and the worn-out mouth.
The end is close. He mutters to himself:
I am almost dead, but still my poems retain
life and its wonders. I was once Walt Whitman.

JLB is just so great. Here is an interesting interview with him on Firing Line in 1977. I can’t imagine anyone today having such an intelligent conversation on television. I have to hand it to Buckley who just lets him talk. He asks some questions to pull him back on track, but he isn’t concerned with inserting himself.

I watched a good movie the other night–The Fugitive Kind (1960)–an adaption of Tennessee Williams’s play Orpheus Descending. It stars Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward and is directed by Sidney Lumet. It is your typical overwrought Williams story of gothic southern proportion, but I still enjoyed it.

The characters are compelling, the acting is very good, and it is certainly better than anything new you will find on Netflix or Amazon Prime. And I forget how handsome and appealing Marlon Brando was in his prime.

I went to a third retirement party on my final day at work yesterday and was hugged a lot. I felt very appreciated and loved. I was asked a million times what my plans are and I thought I really needed an answer, so I started saying, “I’m joining the circus.” The truth is I have no plans. I want to enjoy every day and read a lot of poetry by Jorge Luis Borges and watch Marlon Brando movies. I think that is okay.

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” –Corrie Ten Boom

*Johnny Mercer