Whit Stillman: 'The Last Days of Disco' (1998)

Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998) features an ensemble cast that includes Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale. Set in Manhattan in the early 1980s with a smooth disco soundtrack, this is the other side, away from CBGB, punk and New Wave, none of which are mentioned. There are no Jim Jarmusch street characters anywhere in sight.

Whit Stillman's 1980s trilogy was shot in this order: Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), but the latter sequentially fits in the middle. The Criterion Collection set includes all three of them. Wry stuff.

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Permanent Vacation' (1980)

Permanent Vacation (1980): the first completed effort by Jim Jarmusch, a rudimentary one shot on a shoestring budget, telegraphs his future batch of films. 

I found it interesting and fun, whereas most "regular people" would probably find it aimless and pointless. Permanent Vacation serves partly as a semi-documentary tour of bits of the New York City cityscape in the late 1970s -- shabby and in disarray.

Ali (Chris Parker), the main character, would be quite comfortable in 2018 America as a millennial man-child: weird and awkward, without much ambition or drive other than to do whatever he wants without much cash on hand, slightly brain-damaged in his social interactions. He does muster up enough energy to steal a car for $800 in cash -- hardly something to write home about. 

He seems to drift away from his pseudo-girlfriend after examining the architectural ruins of an area "bombed" by "Chinese" in a some fantasy war where he also happened to stumble on a homeless veteran of the US-Vietnam War.

Ali considers seeing a hip film and interacts with a nodding junkie jazz hepcat, with the final scene from Sergio Leone's Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo / The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (1966) playing in the background, just barely audible (one of the strangest touches of the entire movie).

Earlier, Ali and his pseudo-girlfriend read from Les Chants de Maldoror / Maldorer's Lay (1868-1869) by Comte de Lautréamont.

Permanent Vacation is a prototype of more "fully realized" Jarmusch films, more like Bohemian bits of flash fiction or poems loosely strung together than a longer work.  

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

Mary Harron: 'I Shot Andy Warhol' (1996)

I Shot Andy Warhol  (1996), director Mary Harron's (b. 1953) first film, centers on Valerie Solanas and her fringe relationship with Warhol. Harron's prior experience as a punk rock journalist probably gave her an insider's perspective -- certainly she recreates the Factory milieu with precision of detail. She orginally envisioned a documentary on Solanas and her infamous works, The SCUM Manifesto, Up Your Ass , and her attempted assassination of French publisher Maurice Girodias (she tried to shoot him at the Hotel Chelsea, but he was out) and Andy Warhol, but after discovering that there wasn't enough archival Solanas footage and few who would speak for her, opted for a dramatic account.

Lili Taylor portrays Solanas as a damaged soul. She's been abused and neglected growing up, and is on her own in the world for the most part, street hustling. But she's smart, and very frustrated. A lesbian turning tricks with men, she is drawn into the Warhol crowd through meeting transvestite Candy Darling (played sympathetically by Stephen Dorff), and tries to interest Andy in her writing. His open door policy lets all sorts of weird people into an already weird Factory scene -- open until she later shoots him, which changes everything.

I Shot Andy Warhol  is an interesting exploration of how commercially successful artists and aspiring artists interrelate. Solanas' feminism plays an important role, too -- her SCUM Manifesto cries foul at men and men's power. A la James Brown's 1966 song "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," Solanas believes it, and thinks the world needs a reverse shakeup. Ideally to her, all men should die. 

Though demented in many ways, Solanas has a point. Why are there so few high profile women equivalents of Andy Warhol? Indeed, even by 2018, why have there been no women presidents in the USA? Why is such a crude and brutish man the current American president, beloved (and also hated) by millions? 

Harron herself, as a woman filmmaker and writer, is rare -- only something like seven percent of directors are women.

The actors put in good performances. Taylor (HBO stalwart on Six Feet Under  and The Notorious Betty Page ) is edgy, scary, mouthy and believable. Jared Harris (Mad Men, &c.) plays Warhol with appropriate cool and nervousness. Donovan Leitch (son of the singer) is fun as Gerard Malanga, and Michael Imperioli serves up Warhol's sidekick Ondine with bitchy camp -- and strong hints of his Sopranos' character, Christopher. Mark the scruffy Revolutionary is played by Justin Theroux in his first movie (Joe from Six Feet Under; Mulholland Drive ): it's his Beretta that Solanas uses to shoot Andy.

After I Shot Andy Warhol, Harron went on to write the screenplay for American Psycho (2000), which she also directed. She also worked on HBO's Six Feet Under  ("The Rainbow of Her Reasons," 2005) and made The Notorious Betty Page (2005). She did The Anna Nicole Story (2013), too. There is continuity in all of her work so far -- exploration of gender issues, fame and notoriety. All interesting stuff. And unsettling. Some of it's funny, some of it's gravely serious, not unlike Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, with whom she clearly feels an affinity for women and mystery.

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Stranger Than Paradise' (1984)

Jim Jarmusch: Stranger Than Paradise (1984) -- same year as the Coen Brothers' first movie, Blood Simple.

Stranger Than Paradise, made on a shoestring budget, is all verve and imagination, a lovely film. 

There are really only four substantive characters in it, all related by Hungarian blood or American friendship: Willie (John Lurie), his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint), their aunt Lotte (Cecillia Stark) and Willie's pal Eddie (Richard Edson). And one key song: "You Put a Spell on Me" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. All but Aunt Lotte are in movement -- New York City, Cleveland, Florida. Jarmusch employs fades between scenes, and it's shot entirely in black and white film -- elements that one will not forget. 

Stranger Than Paradise may very well be the "freshest" of all of Jim Jarmusch's films, though Gimme Danger (2016), his recent documentary on Iggy and the Stooges, is "fresh" in its own way. 

Can you dig? I love seeing such perspectives on things, what Russian theorist Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) dubbed --  -- one hundred and one years ago -- defamilarization. Seeing ordinary seeming people and things anew, those and that which we've become "used to" -- or tired of -- with "refreshed eyes" -- and a renewed magical sense of possibility.   

Today's Rune: Strength. 

James Baldwin and Raoul Peck: 'I Am Not Your Negro' (2016)

James Baldwin's words, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, directed by Raoul Peck and intermixed with intense archival footage, underscore the importance and relevance of I Am Not Your Negro (2016) in the 21st century. 

Very little has been resolved since Baldwin (1924-1987) drafted Remember This House (just published in 2017) in the decade prior to his death. 

Through consideration of the outstanding lives and violent deaths of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., Baldwin expounds upon race and identity in the United States to great effect.

A couple of snippets, as narrated by Jackson:  "In the years in Paris, I had never been homesick for anything American. Neither . . . hot dogs, baseball, majorettes, [Hollywood] movies, nor the Empire State Building, nor Coney Island, nor the Statue of Liberty, nor the daily news, nor Times Square. All of these things had passed out of me. They might never have existed, and it made absolutely no difference to me if I never saw them again. But I missed my brothers and sisters, and my mother. They made a difference. I wanted to be able to see them, and to see their children."

"To look around the United States today is enough to make prophets and angels weep. This is not the land of the free. It is only very unwillingly and sporadically the home of the brave."

The cadences of Baldwin's sentences stick with me. He is still right: the USA will not be anywhere near true to its ideals until a critical and diverse mass of its people can be honest about race and history. 

It's easy to see in other countries -- such as when the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge -- and outright assaults -- anyone who even suggests that previous Turkish governments directed genocide against Turkey's Armenians (1914-1923); while any neutral observer would also see that frank acknowledgement is a surer way forward toward conciliation than denial. Yet as long as a significant subset of white America refuses to accept a fuller history of the United States, screeching the same kind of belligerent denials as come from the Turkish government; and, perhaps, also out of an ugly stubbornness; so long as this contra attitude persists, we shall remain stuck in limbo.   

Today's Rune: Protection. 

'Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary' (2016)

Made a pilgrimage to the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff to see John Scheinfeld's Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary (2016). I wanted to see and hear Coltrane on the big screen. Well worth the extra effort.

The film is partly about the man and the musician, whose 1965 album A Love Supreme usually makes it into the top five jazz recordings of all time (that is, since electronic recordings began in earnest around the time of World War I). The film is also about Coltrane's impact on various people and their evolving ways of perceiving the world, plus more specifically his influence on musicians of various genres.

From the first time I listened to a John Coltrane recording, in my mid-teens, I've been hooked. Even now, I've got a framed album cover of Giant Steps in my work office and a framed cover of Blue Train at home. I've got three copies of A Love Supreme. I also dig Alice Coltrane, who continued down his mystical path after John's death in 1967 at the age of forty.

The most interesting surprise to me about Chasing Trane is a side trip to Japan, during Coltrane's last extended tour, and his visit to the Nagasaki atomic bombing memorial, and the enthusiastic Japanese response. 

The Texas Theatre is where Lee Harvey Oswald was nabbed on November 22, 1963, shortly after 1:40 p.m. A strange feeling to be seeing a John Coltrane documentary in this place on John Fitzgerald Kennedy's 100th birthday. But fitting, because Trane's music provides a portal to places far beyond our typical experience of space and time. 

Today's Music: Flow.  

'Network' (1976)

Network (1976). Paddy Chayefsky, screenplay; Sidney Lumet, director. Starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall. Winner of four academy awards.

Network hasn't saved us from having to endure the first all-television buffoon president, but it sure sets him in the right context: outrageous behavior, roller coaster ratings, demented intensity of approval seeking, zero intellectual curiosity or empathy, total immersion narcissism. 

Welcome to 2017, already so well grasped in 1976.

The most charismatic stars of Network are Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch. The latter's character is having a breakdown, while the former's is on the way up with ferocious vigor. Though not quite as horrible as the soulless ghouls and fools of DJ Trump's inner circle, she's moving in that direction.   

Network: then and now. Sequel: the internet.

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Café retrouvé: Patti Smith's 'M Train' (2015)

Patti Smith, M Train. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

A writer's life: Patti Smith's 

Peregrine

Pilgrimage 

Coffee

Dreams

Memory

Air 

Movement 

Stillness

Ink

Rain

Artifact

Time Regained/Le Temps retrouvé

El café veracruzano fue pionero para tener una denominación de origen en México

Inamorato, mother, son. "I made my coffee in her pot and sat and wrote at a card table in the kitchen by the screen door. A photograph of Albert Camus hung next to the light switch . . . My son, seeing him every day, got the idea that Camus was an uncle who lived far away . . . "(pages [71-72]). 

A quarter-mile from the canal house, coffee at the 7-11. The one at 25000 Jefferson Avenue, or the one at 23019 near the Kroger at Nine Mile, both in St. Clair Shores, Michigan? 

Confusingly, Patti Smith mentions the St. Clair River, but I think of it more as Lake St. Clair.  

I remember early morning runs, when it was cold outside, to pick up coffee at both of these 7-11 stores. And, when it was warmer out, an abandoned fish-and-tackle shop just off Jefferson.

"To me it looked like Tangier, though I had never been there. I sat on the ground in the corner surrounded by low white walls, shelving real time, free to rove the smooth bridge connecting past and present. My Morocco. I followed whatever train I wanted" (page [72]).

I remember all the people I met or knew around there. And social spaces. Steve's Back Room. Fishbones. Golden Chopsticks. Andiamo's. Pat O'Brien's. The public library and to the north, the Blue Goose. To the west, Shores Inn. Cedar Garden. The US Post Office. Hallmark's. El Charro. Grecian Table. The Bowling Alley and Linda's attached. Tim Horton. A connection with Van Morrison's father. Ice on the lake.

Snap! Ding the bell. You don't need to go home, but you can't stay here forever. 

My favorite coffee for some time, Peet's out of San Francisco, celebrates fifty years, or fifty-one this year, of making coffee. There's something about their blend and roasting process that makes me love the taste of their French, House and Major Dickason's Blend in particular.  

The best single coffee I ever tasted was in Italy -- espresso. The worst and weakest, in Pan Handle Texas and in Oklahoma. 

When I was growing up, my parents made coffee often, let's not forget.  On special occasions, a big percolator was set up to keep it flowing. 

Haven't missed a cup of coffee for more than a day since I was seventeen. Something to look forward to every morning, sort of like a little daily miracle of life, resumed. 

Today's Rune: Defense. Veracruz coffee: see El Universal Veracruz (9/9/2011), link here.

'Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois' by Gerald Horne (2000)

Gerald Horne, Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois (New York University, 2000). Fascinating and well-researched biographical study of Shirley Graham (1896-1977), composer, playwright, writer, human rights activist, and second wife of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963).

Horne's work stirred up my interest in the anti-establishment scene, especially during the 1940s and 1950s period. Here's a page from Shirley Graham Du Bois' FBI files, labeling her and W.E.B. Du Bois as "colored." Click to see the whole image, as necessary.

What could be a more "Un-American Activity" than a cultural and scientific conference for world peace?  

Harassment, both formal and informal -- including withholding of travel documents and clandestine rifling through living spaces -- by overzealous members of government agencies, etc., actually led Shirley to become more radical as she matured. She became a communist, in fact (in her late forties), inspiring her husband to do the same (in his eighties), and together they moved to Ghana, where they were visited by influential people from all over the world.

Shirley Graham Du Bois and Malcolm X in Ghana (1964)

Over time, Shirley Graham Du Bois tilted away from Soviet accolades toward Red China; top Chinese leaders fêted her and provided medical support. 

The pathetic state of race relations in the United States made race as well as class powerful wedge issues inside the US and globally -- as they continue to be in the 21st century. 

Gerald Horne's Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois serves as a needed specific chronicle in support of universal consciousness raising. 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Note: Unsure of the provenance of the last photo, but another copy of It can be found here. 

Washington Irving: Take II

Washington Irving was by turns imaginative, intrepid, lazy, sly, and perhaps most drivingly of all, strongly imbued with what some psychologists, poets and philosophers call "the gift of curiosity." 

When he got down to it, Irving could bust a move on his writing activities. Mostly, though, he loved to explore places, while always maintaining a far-flung social network that included family, friends and fellow writers. 

As related in  Brian Jay Jones' Washington Irving: The Definitive Biography of America's First Bestselling Author (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2011; originally published in 2008 as Washington Irving: An American Original), Irving's early adventures embraced his friends "the Lads of Kilkenny," originally the Nine Worthies, including, by moniker, the Doctor, Sinbad, Nuncle, Billy Taylor, the Patroon, Petronius, Captain Great-heart, the Membrane, Oorombates & "the Supercargo." Let's not forget Dusky Davy. 

Jones notes: there was "an anonymity Washington Irving used increasingly, as it allowed him to take on different personas and write in different voices (p. 59). And so, with Salmagundi; or The Whim-whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others (1807-1808), Irving wrote reviews as Will Wizard, Esq., and about fashion and pop culture as Anthony Evergreen, Gent. -- which reminds me that one of his brothers briefly published two newspapers, one supporting Aaron Burr and the other passionately defending the sometimes outrageous positions of the first one!

Washington Irving often promoted his writing in clever ways. For instance, he created the character of Diedrich Knickerbocker, and then wrote about Knickerbocker under the guise of another pen name, Geoffrey Crayon. He spent a good deal of time exploring Spain, most notably Madrid, Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla -- exactly the same places I've been scampering around in recent summers!

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

Brian Jay Jones: 'Washington Irving' (2008, 2011), Take I

In the mid-1990s, I had to give a little twenty minute background talk on American author Washington Irving (1783-1859) to a class in Virginia. Their reading assignment for that day was "Rip Van Winkle" (1819). 

I hadn't given a whole lot of additional thought to Washington Irving until last year, when traveling in Granada, Spain, I saw several of his books for sale, some in English and some in Spanish, at the Alhambra. This piqued my interest again, and it was with great pleasure that I found a copy of Brian Jay Jones' Washington Irving: The Definitive Biography of America's First Bestselling Author (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2011; originally published in 2008 as Washington Irving: An American Original). 

It was with even greater pleasure that I read it - just finished it this week, in fact. Based mostly on letters and other primary sources, it's an engaging biography. 

One of the grandest episodes of Irving's life was his time as United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Spain from 1842 to 1846. But more on that another time, I suspect. For now, let me salute Jones' excellent biography. 

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Vladimir Mayakovsky: 'My Discovery of America' (1926)

In the words of Mickey Newberry, "I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in" (1967): a periodic delving into times gone by. Drop in anywhere and look around: what's different? What's the same? 

For today's time travel experience, let's consider Vladimir Mayakovsky's My Discovery of America, first published in Russian in 1926 (English translation by Neil Cornwell, 2005). Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was a lively Soviet Futurist poet at the time of his 1925 shoestring excursion to Cuba, Mexico and the United States. He traveled mostly by ship and rail (whereas today, one would more likely make the same journey by jet and car). Being a Futurist, he was particularly observant about technology, its impact and possibility. Being a Soviet, he was attuned to class warfare, conditions, and attitudes. A few snippets will give some of his flavor.

He notes of the three classes of passengers aboard the steamship Espagne: "The first class puke up wherever they like; the second -- down on the third class; and the third -- over themselves" (page 6). A vestige of this sentiment can be found  today aboard airplanes, usually divided among but two classes of passengers.

In wandering around the US from poetry reading to poetry reading, Mayakkovsky in 1925 picks up on a segment of American rhetoric that he finds humorous: "There isn't a country that spits out as much moralistic, lofty, idealistic, sanctimonious rubbish as the United States does" (page 68). Comments made by Ted Cruz last night -- in 2016 -- remind us that such hayseed rhetoric still persists.

He sees Havana, Mexico City, parts of Texas, Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago, but his descriptions of Manhattan are the most detailed. This part still rings true, beyond Mayakovsky's astonishment of the widespread use of electric traffic lights (a new development for most of the world in 1925):

During the afternoon work commute in Manhattan, "you can see thousands of cars, racing in six or eight lanes in either direction . . . Every two minutes, the green signal lights up on the traffic lights, so as to let through those tearing out from the side streets . . . Fifty minutes is needed at this time of day for a journey that in the morning would take a quarter of an hour, and pedestrians have to stand and wait . . . deprived of any hope of immediate crossing . . . (page 51). 

There's much more, but there's a taste of it. Traffic hasn't changed a mite in the way it manifests, ninety years later. Mayakovsky is dead, however (suicide at age 36); the Soviet Union came and went. Now we have Putin's Russia, Obama's USA and the internet. Lose some, win some. The human condition remains about the same, I suppose, only with a lot more people scampering around, some livelier than others.   

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Nella Fontaine Binckley (1860-1951) Takes on Wall Street, 1906

I found a few more works by artist and illustrator Nella Fontaine Binckley (1860-1951), granddaughter of artist and draftsman/draughtsman Harvey Mitchell/Michel (1798/1799-1866). These ones date to 1906. The first: '"I once ruined a man in Wall Street," she said.'

These are from Henry Irving Dodge's The Other Mr. Barclay (New York: Consolidated Retail, 1906). '"Will you pay the men for the time they are idle?"'

'"I love you," he was saying'  [. . . as she looked the other away.]

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

'Pawn Sacrifice' (2014/2015): Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky

Edward M. Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice (2014/2015) delivers a dramatic rendering (with some comic touches) of the great but erratic chess player Bobby Fischer, culminating in his world championship match against Boris Spassky in 1972.

I love the cast of Pawn Sacrifice, which includes Tobey Maguire, Liev Schreiber, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg, Lily Rabe, Robin Weigert and Evelyne Brochu, among others. Overall, the movie is fun and interesting, definitely lighter fare -- and hokier -- than the documentaries Red Army and Best of Enemies -- although all three compliment each other within the Cold War Zeitgeist and all three are worth watching. 

In Pawn Sacrifice, Fischer (played by Tobey Maguire) is depicted as a person existentially located somewhere between an anti-social and paranoid "idiot savant," chess prodigy, and enfant terrible -- fittingly compared to Mozart (although Wagner might be even more fitting). Stuhlbarg and Sarsgaard, pictured here, play Fischer's handlers, the one an eager promoter-patriot and the other a worldly Catholic priest and chess coach. 

Liev Schreiber makes Boris Spassky seem a whole lot cooler and classier than Bobby Fischer, albeit tightly contained by his Soviet "management team" (which he resents, but begrudgingly understands). In 1972, both players are "pawns" of the Cold War. 

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015) is packed with good stuff. I love it! The Detroit Industry murals, check, along with other Detroit works by both artists, plus from during their San Francisco stay -- (their place of work there was located at 716 Montgomery Street); New York City; and, first and last, Mexico. Their Detroit stay ran from April 1932 to March 1933, though in September of 1932, Frida hurried off to Coyoacán, Mexico, to be with her dying mother; she returned late in October. While in Detroit, Diego focused on his large-scale murals; Frida completed several important smaller-scale works of her own.   

One of the stellar works created by Frida Kahlo while in Detroit in 1932 is shown here: Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos / Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and The United States. Between pages 93 and 96 of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, there is an almost full-size repro (the actual dimensions are given as 12.5" x 13.75" / 31.8 x 34.9  cm.). 

 
Also included in Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are several telegrams and letters from the period. One from Frida to Guillermo Kahlo, her father (who was German-born) in Mexico, is dated November 21, 1930, when she was living in San Francisco. In it she describes how happy she is to have received a letter from him. "The only thing I didn't like is that you told me that you're just as quick-tempered as always, but since I'm the same way, I understand you very well and I know that it's very hard to control yourself; anyway, try your best at least for mama, who is so good to you . . ."  (page 124). What a character. And what a treasure, their art, for Mexico, Detroit, San Francisco and the world. 

Happy Labor Day in the USA! 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Surrealism and Nella Fontaine Binckley (1860-1877-1951)

Nella Fontaine Binckley (1860-1877-1951), "The Last Analysis. Woman's Rights -- the total sum -- Right man and right income" (1906). Is this satire?  Is this social commentary? Either way, it's in the year 1906.

"A Tongue of Good Report. Tell not your wife of others' sins / Or of yours she'll get a notion; / For you should know that 'Ignorance / Is the mother of Devotion.'"

"Verily. No man, poor slave, can ever save Enough to pay the rent, Howe'er he strive, howe'er he thrive, Without his wife's consent."

"A wife not too clever / Is a joy forever" ~ Nella Fontaine Binckley (1906).

"All is Vanity. . . Of the wise men of Greece and of Gotham we hear, / Bur we know, if we're older than ten, / that since the first woman arrived on the sphere / There haven't been any wise men."

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Malcolm Cowley: 'Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s' (Take II)

In Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s, there's a lot about Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Hart Crane -- though nothing much about the twists and turns of Cowley's relationship with Peggy Baird (1890-1970), nor hers with Hart Crane (1899-1932) before the latter jumped from the deck of the SS Orizaba into el golfo de México, never to be seen again. Alas.     

What Cowley was thinking about in the 1920s: "I was violently opposed to what I called 'the fallacy of contraction.' 'Writers,' I observed in my notebook, 'often speak of 'saving their energy,' as if each . . . were given a nickel's worth of it . . . at liberty to spend -- one cent on Love, one cent on Livelihood, two cents on Art . . . and the remainder on a big red apple . . .  To me, the mind of a poet resembles Fortunatus's purse: the more spent, the more it supplies. . ."  ~ Malcolm Cowley, Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s (Penguin Books, 1986 reprint of the 1956 Viking Press edition; original edition published in 1934), page 161.

"'There are many writers who deliberately contract the circle of their interests. They refuse to participate in the public life of their time, or even in discussion of social questions. They avoid general ideas, are 'bored' by this, 'not concerned' with that. They confine themselves to literary matters -- in the end, to literary gossip. And they neglect the work of expanding the human mind to its extremist limits of thought and feeling -- which, as I take it, is the aim of literature.'" ~ Malcolm Cowley, Exile's Return, page 161. 

Today's Rune: Movement.