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 |
| © Oliverio Magnolia @ Broadway Looking South |
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Friday, December 30, 2016
CarPeo Set Piece ... [#42] ... Impressionist View From The Wetlands
Shocking News From The Borowitz Report
________________________________________________________________________________________________
KREMLIN NAMES TRUMP
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
 |
| "No one has worked more tirelessly for the glory of the Fatherland than Donald Trump," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an official statement. "He has set a high bar for all Kremlin employees, and, for that, we salute him,"  The next GoFather/Trump page is here. |
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Wednesday, December 28, 2016
As Musical Infants, The Rolling Stones Were Walking His Dog
________________________________________________________________________________________________
when the Rolling Stones were merely
credits of their own.
But somebody should have covered the song
containing this profound geological truth
expounded by Mr. Thomas:
containing this profound geological truth
expounded by Mr. Thomas:
*****The world is round*****
*****but it's crooked just the same*****
Rufus Thomas
 |
| Rufus Thomas –singer, songwriter, producer, DJ– billed himself as "The Oldest Teenager in the World." |
________________________________________________________________________________________________
An Equation From The Lewis Carroll School Of Logic
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Let w = the entire course of world history
Let x = the amount of money, stolen at gunpoint
Let y = the amount of money robbed from banks
THEN
________________________________________________________________________________________________
GOM: The Novel ... Chapter 2
________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is mid August, 2016.
Somewhere in Arkansas,
from the driver's seat
of a 16-foot, 6-wheeled
moving truck, I tell her
a story about driving
through Arkansas
in a Honda Civic.
That year was 2004.
I was moving from California
to Virginia, in search of family.
I drove through ten states
and the average interstate speed–
mostly in cruise-control–
was 65 mph.
That was true for every state
except Arkansas, where roadwork
was everywhere along
Interstate-40.
That is not exactly true:
Signs indicating construction
projects on I-40 were everywhere.
Road crews were rarely to be seen
but what did happen at each site:
traffic was reduced to one lane
and the speed limit
was reduced to
20 mph.
In 2004, I could not help but think of the home state
of the previous President of the United States:
Before leaving office, President Clinton
had pork-barreled mega-bucks for infra-structure
in his home state, creating countless jobs
for Arkansanians and many slow motion
moments on the interstate highways.
As a life-time New Yorker
and hardcore Clinton hater,
I thought she would appreciate
this information.
I enjoyed telling her this story
because she did not interrupt me once
while my eyes were fixed on the road,
undeterred by glances at the passenger seat.
She did not interrupt me for what became
an obvious reason:
She had been asleep for the entire time
after we stopped at a Cracker Barrel
in West Memphis to clean the windshield
and eat a hearty lunch.
If you have seen one Cracker Barrel,
you have seen them all
is a statement that is
99.9% true.
You can rely on their food to be
tastefully mediocre and you
are guaranteed to hear
at least one Hank Williams
song coming out of the walls.
Maybe you get lucky and
you get a Patsy Cline ballad.
Except the West Memphis CB
had something no other
Cracker Barrel had:
the staff was entirely black
and the food tasted better
than mediocre!
***
© Paul Oliverio
________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is mid August, 2016.
Somewhere in Arkansas,
from the driver's seat
of a 16-foot, 6-wheeled
moving truck, I tell her
a story about driving
through Arkansas
in a Honda Civic.
That year was 2004.
I was moving from California
to Virginia, in search of family.
I drove through ten states
and the average interstate speed–
mostly in cruise-control–
was 65 mph.
That was true for every state
except Arkansas, where roadwork
was everywhere along
Interstate-40.
That is not exactly true:
Signs indicating construction
projects on I-40 were everywhere.
Road crews were rarely to be seen
but what did happen at each site:
traffic was reduced to one lane
and the speed limit
was reduced to
20 mph.
In 2004, I could not help but think of the home state
of the previous President of the United States:
Before leaving office, President Clinton
had pork-barreled mega-bucks for infra-structure
in his home state, creating countless jobs
for Arkansanians and many slow motion
moments on the interstate highways.
As a life-time New Yorker
and hardcore Clinton hater,
I thought she would appreciate
this information.
I enjoyed telling her this story
because she did not interrupt me once
while my eyes were fixed on the road,
undeterred by glances at the passenger seat.
She did not interrupt me for what became
an obvious reason:
She had been asleep for the entire time
after we stopped at a Cracker Barrel
in West Memphis to clean the windshield
and eat a hearty lunch.
If you have seen one Cracker Barrel,
you have seen them all
is a statement that is
99.9% true.
You can rely on their food to be
tastefully mediocre and you
are guaranteed to hear
at least one Hank Williams
song coming out of the walls.
Maybe you get lucky and
you get a Patsy Cline ballad.
Except the West Memphis CB
had something no other
Cracker Barrel had:
the staff was entirely black
and the food tasted better
than mediocre!
***
© Paul Oliverio
________________________________________________________________________________________________
GOM: The Novel ... Chapter 1
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Humans are so adaptable and humans
have the capability of speech
that declares as much.
and have some form of speech.
Since we cannot understand the lingo
of the lynx or the buffalo,
we call them non-communicants.
What singles out humans is the need to state—
through their vaulted powers of speech—
their undeniable superiority to all other species.
This is what psychologists call
an indelible sign of an inferiority complex.
Ask any commuter at rush hour who is moving
less than one mile an hour but looks up
to a sky full of birds flying free-form
with no bottlenecked
lanes of flight.
Ask that bottlenecked commuter
which is the superior species.
Mr. Bottleneck (or Ms. Bottleneck) would,
of course, add a qualifier:
But has any bird ever created
a printing press or a computer?
The answer is no bird has ever had
a need to invent such things.
***
Get yourself into a hellish environment
and conclude soundly:
This is no time
to act like
an angel.
Get yourself into a segue
and conclude soundly:
This is the time
for a non-sequitir.
***
We were ninety miles out of Memphis
and there was a hotel.
We got a room and did
what was to be done
in a hotel room.
The next morning,
driving with freeway cruise control,
Memphis was more three hours away.
The ninety miles was correct
but there was a single digit
in the hundreds column.
I was correct for believing
in those Ninety miles
I was only incomplete
in my thinking.
I was a half-wit,
slightly less than
half-accurate.
She said:
No bird has ever had any need
to qualify such misjudgments.
***
Exiting Tennessee,
we cross the De Soto Bridge
into Arkansas.
we cross the De Soto Bridge
into West Memphis.
Mississippi River seagulls
welcomed us across the border.
They guano-ed the windshield.
***
Paul Oliverio
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
GOM: THE NOVEL is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
You Will Sprain Your Sanity [HKu #29]
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jump not too high for joy:
The brighter the moon,
the darker the backside.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The brighter the moon,
the darker the backside.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
YOU WILL SPRAIN YOUR SANITY
is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.
The next GoFather Haiku page is
here.
here.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
With Stunning View Of Mount Calvary + Ivy League Scholarships
________________________________________________________________________________________________
MATHUSALEM
North of Bethlehem
south of Sweden
west of Wisconsin
very west
Very biblical:
from whence comes
The Book of Numbers
If Einstein were there,
he would be a commoner
If Einstein were there,
he would be a commoner
Known as "Freakville"
because no student says
I hate Algebra
Pointing to Mt. Calvary
they look up and say
That is not a crucifix,
it is a plus sign
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnote
MATHUSALEM is the copyrighted property
of the Lewis Carroll School of Logic.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
CarPeo Set Piece ... [#41] ... Our Christmas Lunch
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The photographer was surprised
that the woman at the next table
ate only half her dish.
But the truth was
the couple that had sat there
was seated outdoors
temporarily
He wore glasses
and probably one of them
smoked a cigaret
to add another course
to their meal
to add another course
to their meal
The woman, upon return,
left not a drop of food
in her plate
Understandably:
is that good
(especially the fried potstickers)
(especially the fried potstickers)
The photographer
is the incomparable
Mrs. Oliverio
For Christmas dinner,
she cooked up
spaghetti a la delicioso
THE NEXT cARpEO SET PIECE IS
HERE.
For Christmas dinner,
she cooked up
spaghetti a la delicioso
THE NEXT cARpEO SET PIECE IS
HERE.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Drooling Caucasian Quotes One Who Is Drooled Upon
________________________________________________________________________________________________
For black people, being around white people
is sometimes like taking care of babies
you don’t like, babies who throw up on you
again and again, but whom you cannot punish,
because they’re babies.
Eventually, you direct that anger at yourself—
it has nowhere else to go.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rest In Peace, Carrie Fisher, Your Are Eternally Quotable
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes I feel like I've got my nose
pressed up against the window of a bakery,
only I'm the bread.
born: 10/21/56
died: 12/27/16
I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go,
I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight,
strangled by my own bra.
Oh! This’ll impress you: I’m actually in
the Abnormal Psychology textbook.
Obviously my family is so proud.
Keep in mind though, I’m a PEZ dispenser
and I’m in the abnormal Psychology textbook.
Who says you can’t have it all?
I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go,
I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight,
strangled by my own bra.
Oh! This’ll impress you: I’m actually in
the Abnormal Psychology textbook.
Obviously my family is so proud.
Keep in mind though, I’m a PEZ dispenser
and I’m in the abnormal Psychology textbook.
Who says you can’t have it all?
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Non-Haiku [HKu #28]
________________________________________________________________________________________________
I tried to avoid writing
one more haiku but
I failed to do so.
one more haiku but
I failed to do so.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
THE NON-HAIKU
is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.
The next GoFather Haiku page is
here.
here.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Father Forgive Me For Not Posting This Last Night
________________________________________________________________________________________________
'Twas the night before,
the night before Christmas,
and all through the house,
the night before Christmas,
and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring
Paul's Starbucks coffee,
(since he drinks it black
and to the rimtop of the cup).
When up on the rooftop did appear
Paul with his tarp gear.
No presents, no reindeer.
So he was snug with his
nightcap, er, in his nightcap
when the winds did reappear,
and he said, when the plants
blew down for the second time,
Paul's Starbucks coffee,
(since he drinks it black
and to the rimtop of the cup).
When up on the rooftop did appear
Paul with his tarp gear.
No presents, no reindeer.
So he was snug with his
nightcap, er, in his nightcap
when the winds did reappear,
and he said, when the plants
blew down for the second time,
"that's not our problem, dear."
As visions of future sugarless coffees
danced in his head.
danced in his head.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Father Forgive Me But Never Before Have I Seen This Image
________________________________________________________________________________________________
 |
| Nor did I know anything about Leonor Fini until today but this Argentinian-born Italian artist will never be forgotten. |
________________________________________________________________________________________________
For The Birds and All Other Living Things ... [ pST #3]
________________________________________________________________________________________________
 |
| © Oliverio Oops: I forgot to label the sky BUT I will remember to wish Everyone who reads this MERRY CHRISTMAS and Happy everything else The next Superimposed Text page [ pST #4] is here. p = Photoverio |
Saturday, December 24, 2016
A Poem About Poetry ... From New Yorker Magazine
________________________________________________________________________________________________
FISHING AROUND
Keeping his feet, a feeling in his gut,
Heart in his mouth, a slow bee in his bonnet,
Silently groaning under God knows what,
He wants to see if he can write a sonnet:
Nothing spectacular, just some decent verse,
Each phoneme brooded on, each syllable weighed,
The diction plain, the sentence fairly terse
(To please you, lovely reader, meter-made).
And now he feels he’s in his element,
Baiting a hook and casting forth the line,
And through clear water sees a heaven-sent
Swift flash of silver rise into air and shine.
Ah, let it go—go, dart back to the deep.
A lovely thing, but much too small to keep.
Heart in his mouth, a slow bee in his bonnet,
Silently groaning under God knows what,
He wants to see if he can write a sonnet:
Nothing spectacular, just some decent verse,
Each phoneme brooded on, each syllable weighed,
The diction plain, the sentence fairly terse
(To please you, lovely reader, meter-made).
And now he feels he’s in his element,
Baiting a hook and casting forth the line,
And through clear water sees a heaven-sent
Swift flash of silver rise into air and shine.
Ah, let it go—go, dart back to the deep.
A lovely thing, but much too small to keep.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Photographs Of The Year ... With Hyperlink And Without Caption
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Keying In On O'Keeffe With Georgia (+Brooklyn) On Their Mind
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Art Daily
Caption is verbatim
 |
| Reynolda House Museum of American Art conservation staff check the condition of Georgia O'Keeffe's Pool in the Woods, Lake George, after it came home recently from the Tate Modern's blockbuster retrospective on O'Keeffe and before it heads out again to be part of an upcoming Brooklyn exhibition. |
Best Photos Of The Day
Caption is verbatim
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
CarPeo Set Piece ... [#40] ... It Plugs Into The Earth
________________________________________________________________________________________________
© Oliverio
Cable Roots
of the Transparencia Flower
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rock Climbing In Viet Nam In 1995
________________________________________________________________________________________________
We enter a rock passage.
They show us Buddhist shrines
set in big, high-ceilinged caves
inside the Marble Mountain.
They point out how the light hits
the Buddhas through large holes
in the mountains.
I say that it must have been
quite an engineering feat,
getting those holes over the caves
in such a way that the light would fall
so precisely and prettily
on the Lord Buddha.
One of the tour guides smiles
(Why is everybody in this country
smiling at me all the time?
Have they no memory?)
and says I have it backward.
The holes in the mountain were made
by American bombs dropped
from airplanes.
Every place a bomb created a cave,
the Vietnamese built a shrine.
Take Big Bites
If you do not know
who Linda Ellerbee is,
suffices to say that if there were
a Mt. Rushmore of women
in TV newscasting,
it would include her.
who Linda Ellerbee is,
suffices to say that if there were
a Mt. Rushmore of women
in TV newscasting,
it would include her.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, December 18, 2016
The 75th Bullet: It's Only Natural
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Like all good dairy products,
the milk of human kindness
has an expiration date.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
THE 75th BULLET is the copyrighted property of LCSoL.
Only the first 45 Bullets are linked together
because we do not want to make life easy
for our favorite thieves.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Only the first 45 Bullets are linked together
because we do not want to make life easy
for our favorite thieves.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Friday, December 16, 2016
CarPeo Set Piece ... [#39] ... With Superimposed And Pompous Text
________________________________________________________________________________________________
But the un-inverted image
is here.
I could have called it
"Ice Cream Cone Architecture"
but upright, it made me think
of a tall thin pine tree.
The next
CarPeo Set Piece
is
here.
The next
Superimposed Text page
[ pST #3]
is
there.
p = Photoverio
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rockin' n' Rollin' At The Big House On The Corner ... [ pST #1]
________________________________________________________________________________________________
⬆︎
⬇︎
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday, December 15, 2016
CarPeo Set Piece ... [#38] ... Maple Moment w/Cheap Pun
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Mired And Married Kama Sutra (Comic Relief #1509)
________________________________________________________________________________________________
 |
| When the man and woman have eaten Indian food and are too swollen with rice to make conversation, let alone love, it is "The Beaching of the Whales." New Yorker September 24, 2012 |
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bob Dylan's Nobel Acceptance Speech
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Good evening, everyone. I extend my warmest greetings to the members of the Swedish Academy and to all of the other distinguished guests in attendance tonight.
I’m sorry I can’t be with you in person, but please know that I am most definitely with you in spirit and honored to be receiving such a prestigious prize. Being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature is something I never could have imagined or seen coming. From an early age, I’ve been familiar with and reading and absorbing the works of those who were deemed worthy of such a distinction: Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus, Hemingway. These giants of literature whose works are taught in the schoolroom, housed in libraries around the world and spoken of in reverent tones have always made a deep impression. That I now join the names on such a list is truly beyond words.
I don’t know if these men and women ever thought of the Nobel honor for themselves, but I suppose that anyone writing a book, or a poem, or a play anywhere in the world might harbor that secret dream deep down inside. It’s probably buried so deep that they don’t even know it’s there.
If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon. In fact, during the year I was born and for a few years after, there wasn’t anyone in the world who was considered good enough to win this Nobel Prize. So, I recognize that I am in very rare company, to say the least.
I was out on the road when I received this surprising news, and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it. I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn’t have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken, not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I’m sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: “Who’re the right actors for these roles?” “How should this be staged?” “Do I really want to set this in Denmark?” His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. “Is the financing in place?” “Are there enough good seats for my patrons?” “Where am I going to get a human skull?” I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare’s mind was the question “Is this literature?”
When I started writing songs as a teenager, and even as I started to achieve some renown for my abilities, my aspirations for these songs only went so far. I thought they could be heard in coffeehouses or bars, maybe later in places like Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium.
If I was really dreaming big, maybe I could imagine getting to make a record and then hearing my songs on the radio. That was really the big prize in my mind. Making records and hearing your songs on the radio meant that you were reaching a big audience and that you might get to keep doing what you had set out to do.
Well, I’ve been doing what I set out to do for a long time now. I’ve made dozens of records and played thousands of concerts all around the world. But it’s my songs that are at the vital center of almost everything I do. They seem to have found a place in the lives of many people throughout many different cultures, and I’m grateful for that.
But there’s one thing I must say. As a performer I’ve played for 50,000 people and I’ve played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly.
Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried.
The fact that the Nobel committee is so small is not lost on me.
But, like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life’s mundane matters. “Who are the best musicians for these songs?” “Am I recording in the right studio?” “Is this song in the right key?” Some things never change, even in 400 years.
Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, “Are my songs literature?”
So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.
My best wishes to you all,
Bob Dylan
________________________________________________________________________________________________
I’m sorry I can’t be with you in person, but please know that I am most definitely with you in spirit and honored to be receiving such a prestigious prize. Being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature is something I never could have imagined or seen coming. From an early age, I’ve been familiar with and reading and absorbing the works of those who were deemed worthy of such a distinction: Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus, Hemingway. These giants of literature whose works are taught in the schoolroom, housed in libraries around the world and spoken of in reverent tones have always made a deep impression. That I now join the names on such a list is truly beyond words.
I don’t know if these men and women ever thought of the Nobel honor for themselves, but I suppose that anyone writing a book, or a poem, or a play anywhere in the world might harbor that secret dream deep down inside. It’s probably buried so deep that they don’t even know it’s there.
If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon. In fact, during the year I was born and for a few years after, there wasn’t anyone in the world who was considered good enough to win this Nobel Prize. So, I recognize that I am in very rare company, to say the least.
I was out on the road when I received this surprising news, and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it. I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn’t have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken, not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I’m sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: “Who’re the right actors for these roles?” “How should this be staged?” “Do I really want to set this in Denmark?” His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. “Is the financing in place?” “Are there enough good seats for my patrons?” “Where am I going to get a human skull?” I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare’s mind was the question “Is this literature?”
When I started writing songs as a teenager, and even as I started to achieve some renown for my abilities, my aspirations for these songs only went so far. I thought they could be heard in coffeehouses or bars, maybe later in places like Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium.
If I was really dreaming big, maybe I could imagine getting to make a record and then hearing my songs on the radio. That was really the big prize in my mind. Making records and hearing your songs on the radio meant that you were reaching a big audience and that you might get to keep doing what you had set out to do.
Well, I’ve been doing what I set out to do for a long time now. I’ve made dozens of records and played thousands of concerts all around the world. But it’s my songs that are at the vital center of almost everything I do. They seem to have found a place in the lives of many people throughout many different cultures, and I’m grateful for that.
But there’s one thing I must say. As a performer I’ve played for 50,000 people and I’ve played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly.
Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried.
The fact that the Nobel committee is so small is not lost on me.
But, like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life’s mundane matters. “Who are the best musicians for these songs?” “Am I recording in the right studio?” “Is this song in the right key?” Some things never change, even in 400 years.
Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, “Are my songs literature?”
So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.
My best wishes to you all,
Bob Dylan
________________________________________________________________________________________________
This Is Not ... This Is ... [TIN/TI #35]
________________________________________________________________________________________________
⬆⬆
THIS IS NOT
a picture of bread.
a picture of bread.
THIS IS
a picture of bread.
a picture of bread.
⬇⬇
The first image
is an 2016 Oliverio photograph
of a brick sculpture
bordering a fountain,
somewhere in downtown
Long Beach.
The second image
is an 2016 Oliverio photograph
of a brick sculpture
bordering a fountain,
somewhere in downtown
Long Beach.
The second image
was photographed by
who did not have to limit his genius
to Black and White photography!
________________________________________________________________________________________________
CarPeo Set Piece ... [#37] ... Entrance To The Sky Palm Forest
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnote
The only difference between the Photoverio sequence
and the © Oliverio CarPeo Set Piece sequence
is the former sequence involves photography
pre-dating Mrs. CarPeo's Californication.
Also, ALL of the CarPeo Set Piece
photographs are linked together.
The only difference between the Photoverio sequence
and the © Oliverio CarPeo Set Piece sequence
is the former sequence involves photography
pre-dating Mrs. CarPeo's Californication.
Also, ALL of the CarPeo Set Piece
photographs are linked together.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Constant Temptation Of A Novel Reader
________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is a constant temptation to ransack novels for scenes,
themes and characters which may have originals
in the author's life.
The danger is that we may have come
to believe that the connections are more direct
than they often are and that we thereby ignore
the transforming effect of imagination.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnote
The quote is from the introduction to
by Ford Madox Ford.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday, December 12, 2016
A Mind Superior To Mine Reacts To Donald Trump
________________________________________________________________________________________________
When I think Trump, I instinctively summon Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry of 1926 – adapted in a brilliant film starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons in 1960, and after this US election I wouldn’t be surprised if a modern director was inclined to a remake.
The eponymous antihero is a hypocrite and a conman. He has a patchy sexual past and a history of heavy drinking, yet sells himself as a convert to evangelical religion, teaming up with Sister Sharon Falconer, who leads impassioned revivals throughout the midwest. Manipulative and cunning, Gantry is driven to accrue wealth through religious hucksterism, but also power; he feeds off the roar of the crowd. He’s a narcissist and a fraud who has left multiple ruined lives in his wake.
The main difference between Gantry and Trump is that Gantry is portrayed as genuinely charismatic. Lewis’s preacher gets his leg over figuratively and literally because, as a performer, he’s mesmerising. Trump is not charismatic. He is artless and politically clumsy, and wears his egotism on his sleeve. Nor is Trump mesmerising, except in the sense that a train wreck is mesmerising. Gantry’s success in pulling the wool over people’s eyes is understandable: he has a silver tongue, and on stage he’s larger than life. Trump can’t string a single grammatical sentence together, and at the podium he is lumpen and awkward. As a fictional character, Gantry works, and Trump doesn’t. As Mark Schorer, an American academic, observed: “The forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in Elmer Gantry are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality.”
Some things never change.
________________________________________________________________________________________________The eponymous antihero is a hypocrite and a conman. He has a patchy sexual past and a history of heavy drinking, yet sells himself as a convert to evangelical religion, teaming up with Sister Sharon Falconer, who leads impassioned revivals throughout the midwest. Manipulative and cunning, Gantry is driven to accrue wealth through religious hucksterism, but also power; he feeds off the roar of the crowd. He’s a narcissist and a fraud who has left multiple ruined lives in his wake.
The main difference between Gantry and Trump is that Gantry is portrayed as genuinely charismatic. Lewis’s preacher gets his leg over figuratively and literally because, as a performer, he’s mesmerising. Trump is not charismatic. He is artless and politically clumsy, and wears his egotism on his sleeve. Nor is Trump mesmerising, except in the sense that a train wreck is mesmerising. Gantry’s success in pulling the wool over people’s eyes is understandable: he has a silver tongue, and on stage he’s larger than life. Trump can’t string a single grammatical sentence together, and at the podium he is lumpen and awkward. As a fictional character, Gantry works, and Trump doesn’t. As Mark Schorer, an American academic, observed: “The forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in Elmer Gantry are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality.”
Some things never change.
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