An impressive collection of brands that appear in film, tv, and video games. There is now a book as well: fictionalbrandsarchive.combook.html
"First Fall" by Maggie Smith
I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you.
on my chest. Stars smolder well.
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know.
because I’ve named them.
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another.
season to offer you: frost soft.
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see.
something die, you won’t know it might.
come back. I’m desperate for you.
to love the world because I brought you here.
Our Real Work By Wendell Berry
It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
If anyone has any recommended essays or writings on the subject of “taste” — as in critical judgment, discernment, or appreciation — I’d love to hear them. Particularly anything that tries to define it. Think Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” for example.
The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell
I learned this poem as a child and it always comes to mind as soon as I see the first flurries of winter. But what I just realized when I looked it up (to see if I actuallly remembered it rightly) was that I had only learned the first two stanzas, thinking that was the entire poem. But there are 8 more stanzas and, unsurprisingly, the poem is about a lot more than observing the first snow.
The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow, The stiff rails were softened to swan’s-down, And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window The noiseless work of the sky, And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?” And I told of the good All-father Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snow-fall, And thought of the leaden sky That arched o’er our first great sorrow, When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience That fell from that cloud-like snow, Flake by flake, healing and hiding The scar of our deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered, “The snow that husheth all, Darling, the merciful Father Alone can make it fall!”
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her; And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister, Folded close under deepening snow.
Watched The Mastermind tonight, Kelly Reichardt’s latest. Like her other work, it’s subtly brilliant. Her films are always deeper than they first appear. What first appears to be an intimate character sketch, taps into saying something larger about life during the time and place of the setting.
“In most cases, people, even evil-doers, are much simpler and more naive than we generally suppose. And the same is true of you and me.” –The Brothers Karamazov
In the dark times will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times. —Bertolt Brecht
Hymnological Rabbit Trail
Restore my soul, O God. There are green pastures around me for which my eye has no lens; there are quiet waters beside me for which my ear has no chord; restore my soul. The path on which I go is already the path of your righteousness; open my eyes, that I may behold its windows. The place I call dreadful is even now the house of the Lord; the heavens shall cease to hide you when you have restored my soul. May I be content to know your goodness and mercy shall follow me without waiting to see them in advance of me. Amen. – George Matheson
I came across this passage in a devotional book this morning and decided to look up the author. He was a Scottish minister in the 19th century, but what puts this passage in a new light is that he went blind at age 20. He was engaged to be married at the time, but when his fiancee learned he was going completely blind and there was nothing that could be done, she broke off the engagement.
About twenty years later, on the eve of his sister’s wedding, he penned “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go” which is, of course, what he is best known for. He said “I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.”
I’ve always found the line “I trace the rainbow through the rain” a touch treacly, but now knowing the backstory I may have to change my mind.
He never married.
“A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it, too.” – George MacDonald
South Carolina. The once-every-three-years ice/snow storm brings out a member of the neighborhood to plow with his own tractor. He wears shorts. Other members of the neighborhood get very angry that he is plowing and ruining the sledding hills and, thus, the childhoods of their children.
Train Dreams was not quite Malick, but Malickesque in a good way, so I’ll take it. Worth it for the beauty of the imagery.