La Belle et la Bête [1946)

We return to old wounds.

First tastes.

Last glimpses.

I told her, but she did not believe me.  Belle.

And I have rejected several metric tons of noise to be a dedicated son.

Asks for a single rose.

Saved by a fire beneath a sturdy mantle in the cold countryside.

One of the first French films I saw.  Maybe the very first.

Where my eyes were open.

King Lear and filial piety and the prodigal.

But daughters who are pure.  Rare.

1001 nights.  The same question.

The persistence of memory.

We must visit.  We must move.  We must be there.

Magic mirrors before Skype or Facetime.

Back when coups involved messengers on horses.

It should be Cupid firing the arrows.

And not chess against Deep Blue.

Folger’s instant karma.

Here’s your svelte reward.

And your big fat penalty.

It would be nice.

To finish my penance.

And in these tests to feel the peace of Mother Teresa.

That we can call on a saint and ask translation.

Guidance.

We don’t need the whole fairy tale.

Mostly the arms with candelabras and the blinking statues.

 

-PD

Twin Peaks “Traces to Nowhere” [1990)

Before 9/11.

Before the Oklahoma City bombing.

There was a skeleton key.

Dangling.

Word.  To the wise:

it is not easy to pick this show back up after a long hiatus.

Leaving the Rosetta Stone in the mud…to return knee-deep in crypticism.

Almost makes you want to become an FBI agent.  A special agent.

Because your mind likes puzzles…

Plenty of shows on TV like that now.

It’s the law enforcement arm of the propaganda machine which gives us the sexier James Bond.

Word.  To the wise:

Never Say Never Again is really painful (unbearably so) without John Barry.

Or Monty Norman.

Even Kasparov lost to Deep Blue.

On a rematch.

Maybe.

Barely.

And we’ve discussed the much-vaunted anti-Semitism of Fischer.

Word.  To the wise:

there’s a fish in the percolator.

And so Duwayne Dunham (who?) turns in a masterfully-directed episode of Twin Peaks.

The first real episode (after the lengthy pilot).

Which is to say (viz.)–don’t neglect your studies.

Only you are you.

And you are fighting the greatest enemy in the known world.

The hydra-headed logarithm.

Ask my log.

I thought so.

Sherilyn Fenn is painfully attractive.

Like Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep.

C’est-à-dire, Twin Peaks is the Picasso of television.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience.

That this show was broadcast on a major American TV network (ABC) is a miracle.

It was the Armory Show of 7-Eleven culture.

The priceless amidst a shitstorm of mediocrity.

Sometimes the rag pickers find a gem in our disposable civilization.

At which point we chiffonniers are mandated to return it…to its rightful owners.

You.

America.

America is everywhere.

An amoebic blob phenomenon bleeding porn and missiles.

Hasta la vista!  Hava Nagila!

Git er done.

We all need to return to the beginning.

In matters so complex.

And I wish you sharp swords in slicing through the bollocks.

Sincerely.

 

-PD