The Glass Character: 03/01/12

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Poem of the Day

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

This clip proves, once and for all, that I did NOT hallucinate Apple's Way. It's just as smarmy as I remember it: the good little wife trotting out to the picnic table with a platter of fried chicken, grinning so hard she might split her face; the eager kids gathering around, Papa in a checked shirt at the head of the table, all that shit. Grandpa eating corn with a "mmmmm, MM!" sort of look on his face is. . . I won't make the obvious reference, but it's not "asparagus-y".

My favorite part (which you don't get in this version, but it's in the http://www.televisiontunes.com/ one I posted below) has at least one dog barking. Reminds me a bit of National Lampoon's Vacation.

I wonder what Apple's Way would be like brought up-to-date. The references to Apple are just too obvious, of course. Nobody knew what the hell a computer was in those days, except maybe a sinister force that took over the U. S. S. Enterprise or cut that poor astronaut loose in 2001. No, today George Apple would be just getting out of detox after embezzling money from his waterfall company (or was it an orchard?). His wife would reluctantly forgive him for having an affair with his secretary, Ronald Pear (a dwarf who runs his own pit bull escort service) until she finds him looking at homosexual porn when he's supposed to be creatively reworking the company's profits.

But certain things would remain the same: she'd do all the housework, and they'd have at least one dog.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

You have GOT to try this!

http://www.televisiontunes.com/

Your very own time machine! This site has EVERY TV theme song ever written, from Donna Reed and Perry Mason right up to current hit sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory (in case you think I was born in the Cretaceous Period. I was, but never mind.) It even has Apple's Way, a series from some time in the '70s that I thought I had hallucinated.

I remember only one scene from Apple's Way, and I don't know why. George Apple, played by Phgkdlslslmbbkb (who cares?), is the loving patriarch of a family that runs some sort of waterfall company, or maybe makes apples. The family is facing an aching crisis like Betty Jane losing her Brownie uniform. We see George and his wife (played by Blfhdkdkdk) in the bedroom. She's sitting up in bed with an angst-ridden look on her face, her brow puckered. George brings her a cup of tea. There follows a bit of dialogue that will be with me until the day I die:

Wife: How come you always know just what to do when things are not-so-good?

George: Isn't that what it's all about?

I swear, I remember nothing else from the series, but that was enough.