Archives for February 2019

One for Potter

All through your life, you’ll hear holy folk say,
“He is the Potter, we are the clay.”
From Isaiah down through the present day,
“He is the Potter, we are the clay.”
But forty years in, you start to feel
That the Potter has fallen asleep at the wheel
The shape that God so finely carved
Will not return unless we’re starved
And thoughts that once arose on high
Go underground: “When will I die?”
The consolation that almost makes up:
The gobsmacked cry when the Old Man wakes up
The yawning chasm twixt is and ought
What God had planned, what God hath wrought

RIP Albert Finney

If I had a quarter for every time I’ve watched Miller’s Crossing, I’d probably have enough money to buy a bottle of decent bourbon so that I could play the only drinking game I’ve ever played, which is, every time someone takes a drink in Miller’s Crossing, take a drink. So many great lines from Mr. Finney in this one, but the first that comes to mind is, “We’re all friends here!” spoken in barely controlled anger. Thank you, sir.

Synergy?

I pass this every morning on my way to work. Times are tough.

Status report

So much for Alphonse. First time as tragedy, second time as farce.

So. What’s everybody working on?

What I did on my summer vacation

Le sigh.

“By the mid-’80s, at a meeting of the New York Society of Film Critics, [Pauline] Kael leaned over to Richard Schickel and whispered, sadly, ‘It isn’t any fun anymore.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Remember how it was in the ’60s and ’70s, when movies were hot, when we were hot? Movies seemed to matter.'”

— Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, by Peter Biskind