Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Posted on: December 30, 2008

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House of the Rising Sun 45

Caught an archived addi­tion of On Point today. Fascinating. A dis­cus­sion of the roots of an American clas­sic, The House of the Rising Sun. Far more to it than I had pre­vi­ously ever thought about. And our old friend, Alan Lomax, plays a major part in the story. It wasn’t just The Animals involved. In fact, far from it. They just made the most famous ver­sion in 1964. But so many oth­ers cov­ered the tune and it orig­i­nated, most likely, in the Kentucky hills. Though it’s pos­si­ble that it goes back even fur­ther, well into the 18th cen­tury. At least part of the song.

Sung by men and women, the song takes on com­pletely dif­fer­ent mean­ing. With the for­mer, it sounds like a young man who has fallen into dis­so­lu­tion, and can’t escape from it.…

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Posted on: December 29, 2008

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We have a new essay on Zamyatin, and new poetry on tap as well. Robert Mueller and Tony Jones return with more lyri­cal and cre­ative writing.

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Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman, in Casablanca.

My own writ­ing and read­ing has slowed a bit as we move to the end of 2008. The hol­i­days have seen me sink­ing into movies pri­mar­ily. Nothing of stun­ning note, though I did enjoy watch­ing the clas­sic, Casablanca, again. My guess is, how­ever, that my own thoughts would not add any­thing new to the libraries of crit­i­cal assess­ments regard­ing that great story of Rick and Ilsa and the mad­ness in Morocco.

On an entirely per­sonal note, Ingrid Bergman always reminds me of a for­mer girlfriend.…

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Posted on: December 29, 2008

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Blind Spot

The scam: the scene in Punch Drunk Love
where the hero­ine is bleed­ing and
Adam Sandler takes a tire iron to
the toughs that just wrecked his
car and his life.

What I find dis­turb­ing is the con­cept that
inevitably some­one with issues like Sandler’s
must of neces­sity find true love. I am the age
of his char­ac­ter with neu­ro­log­i­cal issues
of my own, and I haven’t seen its ananke.
A sweet film, but false advertising.

2.
Will the comet shear­ing a rut through
the heart of the sky, so beau­ti­ful
and seem­ing benif­i­cent now on the hori­zon,
destroy us or is that law of physics
going to be sus­pended as well?

My life went up in smoke, but the vapors
con­cretized and reassem­bled them­selves into
a cas­tle of lime­stone which is where I live
now, with an empty heart that mag­i­cally gen­er­ates
enough fire to power cities, to the amuse­ment of
black­birds that flock in the willows.…

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