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Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Sequel

ART WARS

Stan Rice, Poet and Painter, Is Dead at 60... New York Times   Wed Dec 11 06:27:00 EST 2002

"This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond...."

— Emily Dickinson (See yesterday's notes.)

And the hair of my flesh stood up (Job 4:15).
The emotional quality of the moment is
The religious experience of the atheist.
This is Day Three.
Ezra Pound makes me sit
Under the gold painted equestrian statue
At Central Park South and 5th.

— Stan Rice, "Doing Being" (See yesterday's notes.)

Stan Rice died on Monday.
Today is Wednesday. 
This is Day Three. 

15	Then a spirit passed before my face;          the hair of my flesh stood up:
16	it stood still,          but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
17	Shall mortal man be more just than God?          Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

Culture Clash at Midnight
in the Garden of Good and Evil

In a future life, if not in this one, Dante might assign these two theologians to Purgatory, where they could teach one another.  Both might benefit if Shepard took Apczynski's course "The Intellectual Journey" and if Apczynski read Shepard's new book of short stories, Great Dream of Heaven. 

Background music might consist of Sinatra singing "Three Coins in the Fountain" (for Shepard -- See my journal notes of December 10, 2002) alternating with the Dixie Chicks singing "Cowboy, Take Me Away" (for Apczynski, who is perhaps unfamiliar with life on the range).

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Point of No Return

From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar for December 10:

• On this day in 1864, General William T. Sherman’s Union army reached Savannah and the 12-day siege began.  Sherman was able to present the city to President Lincoln as a “Christmas present."

An album recorded in September 1961:

Songs in the above list:

September Song * When the World was Young
I'll Be Seeing You * I'll See You Again
Memories of You * There Will Never Be Another You
Somewhere Along the Way * A Million Dreams Ago
It's a Blue World * I'll Remember April
These Foolish Things

Not in the list, but in the album:

As Time Goes By

The Savannah Connection:

Augustus Saint-Gaudens
William Tecumseh Sherman,
1892-1903 (installed 1903)
Central Park, New York City

From

The Necessary Angel,

by Wallace Stevens
(New York: Knopf, 1951)
 (New York: Vintage Books, 1966):

"The theory of poetry, that is to say, the total of the theories of poetry, often seems to become in time a mystical theology or, more simply, a mystique. The reason for this must by now be clear. The reason is the same reason why the pictures in a museum of modern art often seem to become in time a mystical aesthetic, a prodigious search of appearance, as if to find a way of saying and of establishing that all things, whether below or above appearance, are one and that it is only through reality, in which they are reflected or, it may be, joined together, that we can reach them. Under such stress, reality changes from substance to subtlety...."

Part of a journal entry for
October 25, 2002:

Trinity See... Bonaventure's Itinerarium Mentis in Deum and a graves list for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, final resting place for Johnny Mercer and plot key to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Point of No Return was Sinatra's
last album for Capitol.

Note the strategic placement
of the Capitol Records logo
on the album cover.

Great Dream of Heaven

The title is that of Sam Shepard's new book of short stories.  It is relevant to several of my recent journal entries.

This author's own title also seems relevant.  Here is an excerpt from a web page on The Church of the Good Shepherd:

"This is the oldest church in Beverly Hills, and over the years, this small house of worship has been the local parish church for most of the Catholic movie stars who live in Beverly Hills.... It has seen numerous celebrity weddings and funerals. Although the church's interior is modest (it seats just 600), and its decor surprisingly simple, the Church of the Good Shepherd has been featured in several Hollywood films: most notably, it was the location for the funeral scene in the 1954 version of 'A Star is Born.'"

Today's Birthday: Emily Dickinson

Complete Poems, 1924 

Part Four: Time and Eternity

LXXXIII

This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond....

Born Yesterday: Kirk Douglas 

From Douglas's Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning (Simon & Schuster, 1997) —

"Selling artwork, devoting time to charitable causes, writing novels, are all worthwhile means of occupying your time when good scripts aren't coming your way.  But then, in the spring of 1993, one did.

It was called Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, a story of a growing friendship betwen two old men dealing with the twilight of their lives.... It was brilliant....

I called my agent... "So make the deal."

A long pause.  "But the director wants to meet you." ....

.... My agent called the next day. "She really likes you, Kirk... but... ah," he started to stutter.

"What?"

"She wants Richard Harris."

In the film of
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway 
as finally made,
Richard Harris dies on
Hemingway's birthday.

Dead on October 25, 2002,
Picasso's Birthday:

Actor Richard Harris  

A journal entry of October 25, 2002:

Wrestling Pablo Picasso

The old men know when an old man dies.
— Ogden Nash

A description of the title story
in Sam Shepard's Great Dream of Heaven:

"Two old men who share a house are as close as a married couple until a competition to wake up first in the morning and a mutual fascination with a Denny's waitress drive them apart."

Three Coins in the Fountain

The reverse of three bronze coins
minted during Constantine’s early years

"Constantine like many of his predecessors had worshipped the Greek and Roman gods, particularly Apollo, Mars and Victory. This fact is evident in the portrayal of these gods on the earliest of Constantine’s coins. Yet surprisingly, even after his dream experience, and subsequent victory over Maxentius, it is recorded that he continued to worship these gods. Although the images of Apollo, Mars and Victory quickly disappeared from his coinage, later coins minted under Constantine shows that he likely continued to worship the sol invicta [sic] or ‘Unconquered Sun’ for 10 years or more after his dream experience. Yet, over a period of years, the experience of the sign, and the victory at the Milvian bridge, eventually led Constantine to favour and later to convert to the Christian faith."

— Ross Nightingale, "The 'Sign' that Changed the Course of History," in Ancient Coin Forum

"Three coins in the fountain,
Each one seeking happiness.
Thrown by three hopeful lovers,
Which one will the fountain bless?

Three hearts in the fountain,
Each heart longing for its home.
There they lie in the fountain
Somewhere in the heart of Rome."

-- Sinatra's version of the 1954 song
(Lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne)

Which one will the fountain bless?

In order to answer this theological conundrum, we need to know more about the unfamiliar god Sol Invictus.

A quick web search reveals that some fanatical Protestants believe that the Roman deities Sol Invictus and Mithra were virtually the same.  Of course, it is unwise to take the paranoid ravings of Protestants too seriously, but in this case they may be on to something.

The Catholic Church itself seems to identify Sol Invictus with Mithra:

"Sunday was kept holy in honour of Mithra.... The 25 December was observed as his birthday, the natalis invicti, the rebirth of the winter-sun, unconquered by the rigours of the season. A Mithraic community was not merely a religious congregation..."

— The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 edition.

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

It would seem, therefore, that as December 25 approaches we are preparing to celebrate the festival of Sol Invictus. This perhaps answers the theological riddle posed by Sammy Cahn.

From "Things Change," starring Don Ameche:
"A big man knows the value of a small coin."

Today's site music celebrates
Cahn, Styne, Sinatra, and the spirit of the 1950's.
Many thanks to Loyd's Piano Music Page
for this excellent rendition of a Styne classic.

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