I love to see the traces of the places you have been
it gives me hope in the possibility of seeing you again
the things you leave behind like a band for your hair
reminds me of the fact that once you were there.
Notes From the Undrground
Three Great Women
I was talking to my young friend Elise the the other day and I was explaining to her about the three great women.
“You see, Elise, every man is promised three great women in their lifetimes. Unfortunately, I had all mine by the time I was 17.”
“So what are ya doing with me Frank?” She asked.
“I’m going for a bonus round,” I answered.
“Naw! Not with me. I’m a number one kinda girl. I don’t want to be number four!”
“I know what you mean, Elise. Now you know how I feel.”
Anybody know where I can get rid of a couple of used ash trays?
A Tale of Two Cities
I was born in the USA and for as long as I can remember I’ve always felt like an alien who didn’t quite fit in. This is partly to blame, I suppose, on the fact that I was raised in a military family and was constantly pulling up roots and moving every year or so, while growing up. As an adult, I kept up this pattern. I’ve lived in or near some of the largest cities in the U.S.—Houston, Philadelphia, and the New York City area.
I feel comfortable in large cities because they afford me the anonymity that I, an alien, crave. No one looks at you “funny” and as long as you don’t hold a stare for too long, you are left alone.
I recently visited London and Paris. I had long dreamed of visiting these places as they have lived in my imagination for years from reading…
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Frank and Elise
So I took my young friend Elise to a David Bowie tribute in the Highlands the other night. We were sitting there at the bar sipping our whiskies listening to the Serious Moonlight having a conversation about all the Rock Stars that have died recently. David Bowie -69, Glen Frey-67, and Lemmy Kilmister-70. I remarked that these rockers dying recently sort of concerned me.
“Yeah, why’s that Frank?”
“Well because they are all about my age, you know.”
Oh, you have nothing to worry about Frank.”
“Yeah? Why’s that Elise?”
“Because, Frank, you’re no Rock Star.”
Boom!
She did it to me again! Just when I was beginning to recover my equilibrium, she knocked me off my high horse.
Breakfast at Denny’s
So I went to Denny’s and ordered my skillet with the girl friend experience. “Excuse me!” cried the waitress. “The girl friend experience,” I repeated. “It says right here on the menu, GF.” “That’s Gluten Free,” said the incredulous waitress. “Oh!” I said.
Boom!
Waffle House
I am going to have to rethink this whole Waffle House thing. Sometimes this is simply the best possible place to go at certain times under certain circumstances. You know what I’m sayin? I seemed to have found myself there on several occasions most recently. Usually late at night and usually with a hungry friend. You dig? So, I am re-evaluating my position. In any case, their coffee still sucks.
Another Woman
“I realize you have been hurt. If I’ve done anything wrong, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I accept your condemnation.”
“You are a member of Amnesty International and the ACLU. And the head of the philosophy department. Impossible!”
These are two of my favorite quotes from the Woody Allen film, Another Woman. I like them each equally well but for different reasons. The first is such an outrageous statement by a phony pomposity of an ego so far gone as to defy augury and the other hits a little too close to home with the exception of being the head of the philosophy department. Woody Allen strikes gold here with his study of intellectual angst and mid life crisis. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to declare this film to be a mini-masterpiece.
I ran across this neglected, forgotten and, probably one you never heard of mini-masterpiece while scrolling through HULU one night looking for something decent to watch. Oh, a film by Woody Allen! Let me check it out. Probably seen it before but what the heck? So I cued it up and started watching. Curiously enough I didn’t remember anything about it and was soon captivated and mesmerized by the haunting voice-over by one of it’s stars and the brilliant cinematography of one of the worlds foremost cinematographers.
Another Woman was released in late 1988 and runs for 81 minutes. It was written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Gena Rowlands as Marion Post, a middle aged philosophy teacher who is on sabbatical to write a book. It is her voice-over we hear as the movie begins. She is describing her life as accomplished and reasonably well settled.
She rents an apartment downtown to work on her book without distraction and discovers that she is able to overhear the conversation between a patient (Mia Farrow) and her psychiatrist through the heating vents coming from the adjoining apartment. At first Marion blocks off the sound with pillows but later she starts to listen in. The patient is despondent, pregnant, and thinking of ending her life. Her name ironically is Hope.
This conversation gets Marion to thinking about her own life and through series of coincidences, ruminations and, flashbacks, she encounters people from previous times in her life and she discovers she is not as happy as she thought she was.
This is a film of introspection and marvelous performances. A central theme of the film is that people can transform their lives to become more fulfilled. To say the film was Bergmanesque is rather stating the obvious. It has long been known that Woody has been greatly influenced by the Swedish master, Ingmar Bergman. Some say that this film resembles Wild Strawberries but I think it is more Persona like, which was also photographed by Sven Nykvist, Bergman’s favored cinematographer.
This is a wonderful film which I highly recommend.
Merry Prankster
This has been posted before but it it a great story and one I really like. Also I have a story to tell about it. Back in the oughts I worked in a glass manufacturing factory in South Jersey. I was a staff one manager which meant I pretty much helped run the place. Sometimes I’d get a wild hair and walk out into the factory to the so called “hot end” and squarely plant my feet on the oily surface of the floor and lower my head and raise my clenched fist in a black power salute to the workers. We were about 30% black. The black workers got a kick out of it, the white workers didn’t know what to think, and it drove the other managers wild. Hahaha! I have always been an exponent of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters philosophy and I never miss an opportunity to engage.
Juxtapose
In this photograph we see a young Parisian couple dining at a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The Flagrant Delice specializes in French Cuisine. The photograph illustrates perfectly a classic example of the juxtaposition of old and new and east meets west. Notice the male figure in the picture is probably one generation older than the female. He is Caucasian and she is Asian. Finally, he is reading a book, old technology, and she is reading her cell phone, new technology. Yes, Paris is indeed a movable feast.
Top Ten Reasons to Go to Paris this Fall
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Ernest Hemingway. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
Albert Camus. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Simone de Beauvoir. “I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself.”
Jean Paul Sartre. “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”
Patrick Modiano. ” It was in the days when theater companies toured not just France, Switzerland, and Belgium, but also North Africa. I was ten years old. My mother had gone on the road for a play, and my brother and I were living with friends of hers, just outside of Paris.”
Edith Piaf. “La Vie en rose.”
Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris. “If Only We Have Love.”
bassenge
Samuel Beckett lived in Paris and wrote in French. Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days. “We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
Portrait of American novelist Henry Miller (1891 – 1980), 1950s. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer. “I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”
Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. “It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”
Ghost Dog 