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Andrew Geary Dec 2014
Is present once again
in his blackened room,
hears songs in the trees.
The window glows: the sun
reaches all, and doesn’t care
about your comb-over.


Darkness leaves the world,
life refills the street:
cars commuting, bodies shifting
across concrete, passing
familiar others. Emil enters.

He watches the girl
over there: greasy black hair,
paled skin. She is pretty
in her damaged way.
Emil shoves away
Those thoughts, bites
into his McMuffin:
these are getting better.

Slow through the park,
Emil lingers. Joggers in their routes,
a Frisbee keeping itself in the air
until sputtering in the trim grass–
Emil overlooks everything.

He sees the marks glow
underneath his secretary’s
sleeves. He staggers over,
smiling, “I heard what you said,
that your girlfriend broke-in
and bit you in the arm.
If you need to, you can
stay at my place
for a while.” She smiles
a smile Emil’s been aware of
since middle school,
when girls wouldn’t even look
at him and his acne-scars twice.

He opens his door, and walks
within the black, only outlines
of things show. He flips the light
switch. Only he can alter this world.
RAJ NANDY Jul 2017
THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD IN VERSE
Dear Readers, I have tried to cover the salient features of this True Story in free flowing verse mainly with end rhymes. If you read it loud, you can hear the chimes! Due to the short attention span of my readers I had to cut short this long story, and conclude with the
Golden Era of Hollywood by stretching it up to the 1950's only. When TV began to challenge the Big Screen Cinema seriously! I have used only a part of my notes here. Kindly read the entire poem and don't hesitate to know many interesting facts - which I also did not know! I wish there was a provision for posting a few interesting photographs for you here. Best wishes, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.  

                 THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD :
                        THE AMERICAN  DREAM
                             BY RAJ NANDY

           A SHORT  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND
Since the earliest days, optical toys, shadow shows, and ‘magic
lanterns’, had created the illusion of motion.
This concept was first described by Mark Roget in 1824 as  
the 'persistent of vision'.
Giving impetus to the development of big screen cinema with its
close-ups, capturing all controlled and subtle expressions!
The actors were no longer required to shout out their parts with
exaggerated actions as on the Elizabethan Stage.
Now even a single tear drop could get noticed easily by the entire
movie audience!
With the best scene being included and edited after a few retakes.
To Thomas Edison and his able assistant William Rogers we owe the invention of Kinetoscope, the first movie camera.
On the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, Edison
built his first movie studio called the ‘Black Maria’.   (1893)
He also purchased a string of patents related to motion picture
Camera; forming the Edison Trust, - a cartel that took control of
the Film Industry entire!

Fort Lee, New Jersey:
On a small borough on the opposite bank of the Hudson River lay
the deserted Fort Lee.
Here scores of film production crews descended armed with picture Cameras, on this isolated part of New Jersey!
In 1907 Edison’s company came there to shoot a short silent film –
‘Rescue From an Eagle’s Nest’,
Which featured for the first time the actor and director DW Griffith.
The independent Chaplin Film Company built the first permanent
movie studio in 1910 in Fort Lee.
While some of the biggest Hollywood studios like the Universal,
MGM, and 20th Century Fox, had their roots in Fort Lee.
Some of the famous stars of the silent movie era included ‘Fatty’
Arbuckle, Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish,
Lionel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentine and Pearl White.
In those days there were no reflectors and electric arch lights.
So movies were made on rooftops to capture the bright sunlight!
During unpredictable bad weather days, filming had to be stopped
despite the revolving stage which was made, -
To rotate and capture the sunlight before the lights atarted to fade!

Shift from New Jersey to West Coast California:
Now Edison who held the patents for the bulb, phonograph, and the Camera, had exhibited a near monopoly;
On the production, distribution, and exhibition of the movies which made this budding industry to shift to California from
New Jersey!
California with its natural scenery, its open range, mountains, desert, and snow country, had the basic ingredients for the movie industry.
But most importantly, California had bright Sunshine for almost
365 days of the year!
While eight miles away from Hollywood lay the port city of Los Angeles with its cheap labour.

                        THE RISE  OF  HOLLYWOOD
It was a real estate tycoon Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida from
Kansas, who during the 1880s founded ‘Hollywood’ as a community for like-minded temperate followers.
It is generally said that Daeida gave the name Hollywood perhaps
due to the areas abundant red-berried shrubs also known as
California Holly.
Spring blossoms around and above the Hollywood Hills with its rich variety,  gave it a touch of paradise for all to see !
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, and during
1910 unified with the city of Los Angeles.
While a year later, the first film studio had moved in from New
Jersey, to escape Thomas Edison’s monopoly!    (1911)

In 1913 Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky, had leased a barn with
studio facilities.
And directed the first feature length film ‘Squaw Man’ in 1914.
Today this studio is home to Hollywood Heritage Museum as we get to see.
The timeless symbol of Hollywood film industry that famous sign on top of Mount Lee, was put up by a real estate developer in 1923.  
This sign had read as ‘’HOLLY WOOD LAND’’ initially.
Despite decades of run-ins with vandals and pranksters, it managed to hang on to its prime location near the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The last restoration work was carried out in 1978 initiated by Hugh
Hefner of the ******* Magazine.
Those nine white letters 45 feet tall now read ‘HOLLYWOOD’, and has become a landmark and America’s cultural icon, and an evocative symbol for ambition, glamour, and dream.
Forever enticing aspiring actors to flock to Hollywood, hypnotised
by lure of the big screen!

                     GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
The Silent Movie Era which began in 1895, ended in 1935 with the
production of ‘Dance of Virgins’, filmed entirely in the island of Bali.
The first Sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’ by Warner Bros. was made with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology.  (October 1927)
Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, this decade along with the 1940s have been regarded by some as Hollywood’s Golden Age.
However, I think that this Golden Age includes the decades of the
1940s and the 1950s instead.
When the advent of Television began to challenge the Film Industry
itself !

First Academy Award:
On 16th May 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,
the First Academy Award presentation was held.
Around 270 people were in attendance, and tickets were priced at
$5 per head.
When the best films of 1927 & 1928 were honored by the Academy
of Motion Production and Sciences, or the AMPS.
Emil Jennings became the best actor, and Janet Gaynor the best actress.
Special Award went to Charlie Chaplin for his contribution to the
silent movie era and for his silent film ‘The Circus’.
While Warren Brothers was commended for making the first talking picture ‘The Jazz Singer’, - also receiving a Special Award!
Now, the origin of the term ‘OSCAR’ has remained disputed.
The Academy adopted this name from 1939 onwards it is stated.
OSCAR award has now become “the stuff dreams are made of”!
It is a gold-plated statuette of a knight 13.5 inches in height, weighing 8.5 pounds, was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons.
Annually awarded for honouring and encouraging excellence in all
facets of motion picture production.

Movies During the Great Depression Era (1929-1941):
Musicals and dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers provided escapism and good entertainment during this age.
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it
backwards and in high heels,” - the Critics had said.
This compatible pair entertained the viewers for almost one and
a half decade.
During the ‘30s, gangster movies were popular starring James Cagey, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
While family movies had their popular child artist Shirley Temple.
Swashbuckler films of the Golden Age saw the sword fighting scenes of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn.
Flynn got idolized playing ‘Robin Hood’, this film got released in
1938 on the big screen!
Story of the American Civil War got presented in the epic ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939) with Clarke Gable and Vivian Leigh.
This movie received 8 Oscars including the award for the Best Film, - creating a landmark in motion picture’s history!
More serious movies like John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and
John Ford’s  ‘How Green Was My Valley’, were released in 1940 and 1941 respectively.
While the viewers escaped that depressive age to the magical world
of  ‘Wizard of Oz’ with its actress Judy Garland most eagerly!
Let us not forget John Wayne the King of the Westerns, who began
his acting career in the 1930s with his movie ‘The Big Trail’;
He went on to complete 84 films before his career came to an end.
Beginning of the 40s also saw Bob Hope and the crooner Bing Crosby, who entertained the public and also the fighting troops.
For the Second World War (1939-45) had interrupted the Golden Age of Hollywood.
When actors like Henry Fonda, Clarke Gable, James Stewart and
Douglas Fairbanks joined the armed forces temporarily leaving
Hollywood.
Few propaganda movies supporting the war efforts were also made.
While landmark movies like ‘Philadelphia Story’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Citizen Kane’,
‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, were some of the most successful movies of that decade.  (The 1940s)
Now I come towards the end of my Hollywood Story with the decade  of the 1950s, thereby extending the period of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since having past the Great Depression and the Second World War,  the Hollywood movie industry truly matured and came of age.

                        HOLLYWOOD  OF  THE  1950s

BACKGROU­ND:
The decade of the ‘50s was known for its post-war affluence and
choice of leisure time activities.
It was a decade of middle-class values, fast-food restaurants, and
drive-in- movies;
Of ‘baby-boom’, all-electric home, the first credit cards, and new fast moving cars like the Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Hudson, and Chevrolet.
But not forgetting the white racist terrorism in the Southern States!
This era saw the beginning of Cold War, with Eisenhower
succeeding Harry S. Truman as the American President.
But for the film industry, most importantly, what really mattered  
was the advent of the Domestic TV.
When the older viewers preferred to stay at home instead of going
out to the movies.
By 1950, 10.5 million US homes had a television set, and on the
30th December 1953, the first Color TV went on sale!
Film industries used techniques such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision,
and gimmicks like 3-D techniques,
To get back their former movie audience back on their seats!
However, the big scene spectacle films did retain its charm and
fantasy.
Since fantasy epics like ‘The Story of Robin Hood’, and Biblical epics like ‘The Robe’, ‘Quo Vadis’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Ben-Hur’, did retain its big screen visual appeal.
‘The Robe’ released on 16th September 1953, was the first film shot
and projected in Cinema Scope;
In which special lenses were used to compress a wide image into a
standard frame and then expanded it again during projection;
Resulting in an image almost two and a half times as high and also as wide, - captivating the viewers imagination!

DEMAND FOR NEW THEMES DURING THE 1950s :
The idealized portrayal of men and women since the Second World War,
Now failed to satisfy the youth who sought exciting symbols for rebellion.
So Hollywood responded with anti-heroes with stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman.
They replaced conventional actors like Tyron Power, Van Johnson, and Robert Taylor to a great extent, to meet the requirement of the age.
Anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe with her vibrant *** appeal;
She provided excitement for the new generation with a change of scene.
Themes of rebellion against established authority was present in many Rock and Roll songs,
Including the 1954 Bill Hailey and His Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The era also saw rise to stardom of Elvis Presley the teen heartthrob.
Meeting the youthful aspirations with his songs like ‘Jailhouse Rock’!
I recall the lyrics of this 1957 film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ of my school days, which had featured the youth icon Elvis:
   “The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
     The prison band was there and they began to wail.
     The band was jumping and the joint began to sing,
     You should’ve heard them knocked-out jail bird sing.
     Let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell block……………
     Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,
     Little Joe was blowing the slide trombone.
     The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang!
     The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang,
      Let's rock,.................... (Lyrics of the song.)

Rock and Roll music began to tear down color barriers, and Afro-
American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard became
very popular!
Now I must caution my readers that thousands of feature films got  released during this eventful decade in Hollywood.
To cover them all within this limited space becomes an impossible
task, which may kindly be understood !
However, I shall try to do so in a summarized form as best as I could.

BOX OFFICE HITS YEAR-WISE FROM 1950 To 1959 :
Top Ten Year-Wise hit films chronologically are: Cinderella (1950),
Quo Vadis, The Greatest Show on Earth, Peter Pan, Rear Window,
Lady and the *****, Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River
Kwai, South Pacific, and Ben-Hur of 1959.

However Taking The Entire Decade Of 1950s Collectively,
The Top Films Get Rated As Follows Respectively:
The Ten Commandments, followed by Lady and the *****, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in Eighty Days, This is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth, Rear Window, South Pacific, The Robe, Giant, Seven Wonders of the World, White Christmas, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Sayonara, Demetrius and the Gladiator, Peyton Place, Some Like It Hot, Quo Vadis, and Auntie Mame.

Film Debuts By Rising Stars During The 1950s :
The decade of the ‘50s saw a number of famous film stars making
their first appearance.
There was Peter Sellers in ‘The Black Rose’, Marlon Brando in
‘The Men’, and actress Sophia Loren in ‘Toto Tarzan’.
Following year saw Charles Bronson in ‘You Are in the Navy Now’,
Audrey Hepburn in ‘Our Wild Oats’, and Grace Kelly, the future
Princess of Monaco, in her first film ‘Fourteen Hours’. (1951)
While **** Brigitte Bardot appeared in 1952 movie ‘Crazy for Love’; and 1953 saw Steve Mc Queen in ‘******* The Run’.
Jack Lemon, Paul Newman, and Omar Sharif featured in films
during 1954.
The following year saw Clint Eastwood, Shirley Mc Lean, Walter
Matthau, and Jane Mansfield, all of whom the audience adored.
The British actor Michael Cain appeared in 1956; also Elvis Presley
the youth icon in ‘Love Me Tender’ and as the future Rock and Roll
King!
In 1957 came Sean Connery, followed by Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave.
While the closing decade of the ‘50s saw James Coburn, along with
director, script writer, and producer Steven Spielberg, make their
debut appearance.

Deaths During The 1950s: This decade also saw the death of actors
like Humphrey Bogart, Tyron Power and Errol Flynn.
Including the death of producer and director of epic movies the
renowned Cecil B. De Mille!
Though I have conclude the Golden Age of Hollywood with the 50’s Decade,
The glitz and glamour of its Oscar Awards continue even to this day.
With its red carpet and lighted marquee appeal and fashion display!

CONTINUING THE HOLLYWOOD STORY WITH FEW TITBITS :
From Fort Lee of New Jersey we have travelled west to Hollywood,
California.
From the silent movie days to the first ‘talking picture’ with Warren
Bros’ film ‘The Jazz Singer’.  (06 Oct 1927)
On 31st July 1928 for the first time the audience heard the MGM’s
mascot Leo’s mighty roar!
While in July 1929 Warren Bros’ first all-talking and all- Technicolor
Film appeared titled - ‘On With The Show’.
Austrian born Hedy Lamarr shocked the audience appearing **** in a Czechoslovak film ‘Ecstasy’!  (1933)
She fled from her husband to join MGM, becoming a star of the
‘40s and the ‘50s.
The ‘Private Life of Henry VII’ became the first British film to win the  American Academy Award.  (1933)
On 11Dec 1934, FOX released ‘Bright Eyes’ with Shirley Temple,
who became the first Child artist to win this Award!
While in 1937 Walt Disney released the first full animated feature
film titled - ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf ‘.
The British film director Alfred Hitchcock who came to
Hollywood later;
Between 1940 and 1947, made great thrillers like 'Rebecca', ‘Notorious’, ‘Rear Window’, and ‘Dial M for ******’.
But he never won an Oscar as a Director!

THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD:
This award began in 1944 by the Foreign Correspondence Association at
the 20th Century Fox Studio.
To award critically acclaimed films and television shows, by awarding a
Scroll initially.
Later a Golden Globe was made on a pedestal, with a film strip around it.
In 1955 the Cecil B. De Mille Award was created, with De Mille as its first
recipient.

THE GRAMMY AWARD:
In 1959 The National Academy of Recording and Sciences sponsored the
First Grammy Award for music recorded during 1958.
When Frank Sinatra won for his album cover ‘Only The Lonely’, but he
did not sing.
Among the 28 other categories there was Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie
for his musical Dance Band Performance.
There was Kingston Trio’s song ‘Tom Dooly’, and the ‘Chipmunk Song’,
which brings back nostalgic memories of my school days!

CONCLUDING HOLLYWOOD STORY  WITH STUDIOS OF THE 1950s

Challenge Faced by the Movie Industry:
Now the challenge before the Movie Industry was how to adjust to the
rapidly changing conditions created by the growing TV Industry.
Resulting in loss of revenue, with viewers getting addicted to
their Domestic TV screen most conveniently!

The late 1950s saw two studios REPUBLIC and the RKO go out of business!
REPUBLIC from 1935- ‘59 based in Los Angeles, developed the careers of
John Wayne and Roy Rogers, and specializing in the Westerns.
RKO was one of the Big Five Studios of Hollywood along with Paramount,
MGM, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers in those days.

RKO Studio which begun with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the ‘30s,
included actress Katherine Hepburn who holds the record for four Oscars
even to this day;
And later had Robert Mitchum and Carry Grant under an agreement.
But in 1948, RKO Studio came under the control Howard Hughes the
temperamental Industrialist.
Soon the scandal drive and litigation prone RKO Studio closed, while
other Big Four Studios had managed to remain afloat!


PARAMOUNT STUDIO:
Paramount Studio split into two separate companies in 1950.
Its Theatre chain later merged with ABC Radio & Television Network;
And they created an independent Production/Distribution Network.
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had been Paramount’s two biggest stars.
Followed by actors like Alan Ladd, William Holden, Jerry Lewis, Dean
Martin, Charlton Heston, and Dorothy Lamour.
They also had the producer/director Cecil B. De Mille producing high-
grossing Epics like ‘Samson & Delilah’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’.
Also the movie maker Hal Wallis, who discovered Burt Lancaster and
Elvis Presley - two great talents!

20th CENTURY FOX:
Cinema Scope became FOX’s most successful technological innovation
with its hit film ‘The Robe’. (1953)
Its Darryl Zanuck had observed during the early ‘50s, that audience  
were more interested in escapist entertainments mainly.
So he turned to FOX to musicals, comedies, and adventure stories.
Biggest stars of FOX were Gregory Peck & Susan Hayward; also
stars like Victor Mature, Anne Baxter, and Richard Wind Mark.
Not forgetting Marilyn Monroe in her Cinema Scope Box Office hit
movie - ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’, which was also shown on
prime time TV, as a romantic comedy film of 1953.

WARREN BROTHERS:
During 1950 the studio was mainly a family managed company with
three brothers Harry, Albert, and Jack Warren.
To meet the challenges of that period, Warren Bros. released most of
its actors like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Oliver de Havilland, -
Along with few others from their long-term contractual commitments;
Retaining only Errol Flynn, and Ronald Regan who went on to become
the future President.
Like 20th Century Fox, Warren Bros switched to musicals, comedies,
and adventure movies, with Doris Day as its biggest musical star.
The studio also entered into short term agreements with Gary Copper,
John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Patricia Neal, and Random Scott.
Warren Bros also became the first major studio to invest in 3-D
production of films, scoring a big hit with its 3-D  suspense thriller
‘House of Wax’ in 1953.

MINOR STUDIOS were mainly three, - United Artists, Columbia, and
The Universal.
They did not own any theatre chain, and specialized in low-budgeted
‘B’ Movies those days.
Now to cut a long story short it must be said, that Hollywood finally
did participate in the evolution of Television industry, which led to
their integration eventually.
Though strategies involving hardware development and ownership of
broadcast outlets remained unsuccessful unfortunately.
However, Hollywood did succeed through program supply like prime-
time series, and made-for-TV films for the growing TV market making
things more colorful!
Thus it could be said that the TV industry provided the film industry
with new opportunities,  laying the groundwork for its diversification
and concentration;
That characterized the entertainment industry during the latter half  
of our previous century.
I must now confess that I have not visited the movie theatre over the last
two decades!
I watch movies on my big screen TV and my Computer screen these days.
Old classical movies are all available on ‘You Tube’ for me, and I can watch
them any time whenever I am free!
Thanks for reading patiently, - Raj Nandy.
**ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY OF NEW DELHI
Max Neumann Nov 2019
take me away from this journey
i am trapped in the land of placelessness

blind / hypnotized
route 36 / bolivia
deaf / treated with ultrasound
simultaneously

scarcely knowing
what all that means

i am feeling the rising of blood
a wave of heat like sandstorms

inevitability: willful / knowing / aware

i am putting myself at risk of dying
long ago i read about the risks and consequences
of my ******* abuse
pervaded them intellectually while

my heart remains deafly because
of *******
bitter
sear
aflutter and in panic

there is just:

one life
one heart
one body one man

man what are you doing?!?!
i am hollering into my inner
embracing the envelope
obsessed over bitterness
numb love
in the dungeon of plotted heavens
lofty as never before
is where i am running away from:
every day

in the 1920s there was a man
who they called "koks-emil"
he sold ******* in the nightstreets of berlin

the national archive has been keeping
a picture of him doing business with
two girls out of gangland we
can't see the face of the one standing left only  
her back

however her companion typifies precisely
what the drug creates in our souls:
a form that can not be imitated
like the effect of the drug

a form of longing and greed in the
girl's face

longing and greed
balancing each other
not one of
these states predominates

while beholding the girl i am becoming
horridly conscious
about myself
horridly about

my relationship with *******
my affair with *******
my love to ******* this
sounds sick?
indeed it is

we call it
suffering from an addiction

we call it
suffering from a dependency

become clean.
i wish you willpower
wish you strong luck
wish you peace at last

the rate of relapsing
******* users is vast
during the night

when the wind is
breezing mildly

when the stones of the cities
are breathing out the heat of the day

while you are
sneaking over the streets

while every street corner resembles
the very one where
koks-emil used to sell his product

while you are sensing the smell
of bitterness

while you are being preoccupied with
her face: her longing her greed

while you are experiencing
yourself:

more deeply
more soberly
and more knowingly
as before

while you
are reaching out your hands searching
with kidfingers for koks-emil

the guy with the warped corner of the mouth
the reliable / greedy one

the one who is always ready

a salesman has to be available for
every second of your longing
every second of your greed

koks-emil: your world is made of black and white
your hat is grey its bonnet is vanishing as your
shivering hands

hands that spread capsules
hands that grap at bills
hands that you use to brush away your sweat

**** between the lipps
shabby coat

koks-emil your spirit
blows through inner cities like gas fumes
a grin on your face coming from
lurid lights

you became immortal
you underwent rapid decades
you were an addict
you created addicts
you served addicts

the ****** expression of the girl
your child-like customer
remains for

all for everybody with a
*******-addiction

for all and for everybody
who depends on *******

for all and everybody
who is clean from *******

for all and everybody:
longing and greed

rest in peace girl
Based on true events.

Today is a good day.
RAJ NANDY Aug 2017
Dear Readers, I have tried to cover the salient features of this True Story in free flowing verse mainly with end rhymes. If you read it loud, you can hear the chimes! Due to the short attention span of my readers I had to cut short this long story, and conclude with the
Golden Era of Hollywood by stretching it up to the 1950s only. When TV began to challenge the Big Screen Cinema seriously! I have used only a part of my notes here. Kindly read the
entire composition during your Spare Time dear Readers. I wish there was a provision for posting a few interesting photographs for you here. Best wishes, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.  

                THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD :
                      THE AMERICAN  DREAM
                              BY RAJ NANDY

               A SHORT  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND
Since the earliest days, optical toys, shadow shows, and ‘magic
lanterns’, had created the illusion of motion.
This concept was first described by Mark Roget in 1824 as  
the persistent of vision.
Giving impetus to the development of big screen cinema with its
close-ups, capturing all controlled and subtle expressions!
The actors were no longer required to shout out their parts with
exaggerated actions as on the Elizabethan Stage.
Now even a single tear drop could get noticed easily by the entire
movie audience!
With the best scene being included and edited after a few retakes.
To Thomas Edison and his able assistant William Rogers we owe the invention of Kinetoscope, the first movie camera.
On the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, Edison
built his first movie studio called the ‘Black Maria’.   (1893)
He also purchased a string of patents related to motion picture
Camera;
Forming the Edison Trust, - a cartel that took control of the Film
Industry entire!

Fort Lee, New Jersey:
On a small borough on the opposite bank of the Hudson River lay
the deserted Fort Lee.
Here scores of film production crews descended armed with picture Cameras, on this isolated part of New Jersey!
In 1907 Edison’s company came there to shoot a short silent film –
‘Rescue From an Eagle’s Nest’,
Which featured for the first time the actor and director DW Griffith.
The independent Chaplin Film Company built the first permanent
movie studio in 1910 in Fort Lee.
While some of the biggest Hollywood studios like the Universal,
MGM, and 20th Century Fox, had their roots in Fort Lee.
Some of the famous stars of the silent movie era included ‘Fatty’
Arbuckle, Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish,
Lionel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentine and Pearl White.
In those days there were no reflectors and electric arch lights.
So movies were made on rooftops to capture the bright Sunlight!
During unpredictable bad weather days, filming had to be stopped
despite the revolving stage which was made, -
To rotate and capture the sunlight before the lights started to fade!

Shift from New Jersey to West Coast California:
Now Edison who held the patents for the bulb, phonograph, and the Camera, had exhibited a near monopoly;
On the production, distribution, and exhibition of the movies which made this budding industry to shift to California from New Jersey!
California with its natural scenery, its open range, mountains, desert, and snow country, had the basic ingredients for the movie industry.
But most importantly, California had bright Sunshine for almost 365 days of the year.
While eight miles away from Hollywood lay the port city of Los Angeles with its cheap labor.

                        THE  RISE  OF  HOLLYWOOD
It was a real estate tycoon Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida from
Kansas, who during the 1880s founded ‘Hollywood’ as a community for like-minded temperate followers.
It is generally said that Daeida gave the name Hollywood perhaps
due to the area's abundant red-berried shrubs - known as
California Holly!
Spring blossoms around and above the Hollywood Hills with its rich variety,  gave it a touch of paradise for all to see!
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, and during
1910 had unified with the city of Los Angeles.
While a year later, the first film studio had moved in from New
Jersey, to escape Thomas Edison’s monopoly!    (1911)

In 1913 Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky, had leased a barn with
studio facilities.
And directed the first feature length film ‘Squaw Man’ in 1914.
Today this studio is home to Hollywood Heritage Museum as we get to see.
The timeless symbol of Hollywood film industry that famous sign on top of Mount Lee, was put up by a real estate developer in 1923.  
This sign had read as ‘’HOLLY WOOD LAND’’ initially.
Despite decades of run-ins with vandals and pranksters, it managed to hang on to its prime location near the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The last restoration work was carried out in 1978 initiated by Hugh
Hefner of the ******* Magazine.
Those nine white letters 45 feet tall now read ‘HOLLYWOOD’,  has become a landmark and America’s cultural icon,
And an evocative symbol for ambition, glamour, and dreams!
Forever enticing aspiring actors to flock to Hollywood, hypnotized by lure of the Big Screen!

                     GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
The Silent Movie Era which began in 1895, ended in 1935 with the
production of ‘Dance of Virgins’, filmed entirely in the island of Bali.
The first Sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’ by Warner Bros. was made with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology.  (October 1927)
Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, this decade along with the 1940s have been regarded by some as Hollywood’s Golden Age.
However, I think that this Golden Age includes the decades of the
1940s and the 1950s instead.
When the advent of Television began to challenge the Film Industry
itself !

First Academy Award:
On 16th May 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,
the First Academy Award presentation was held.
Around 270 people were in attendance, and tickets were priced at
$5 per head.
When the best films of 1927 & 1928 were honored by the Academy
of Motion Production and Sciences, or the AMPS.
Emil Jennings became the best actor, and Janet Gaynor the best actress.
Special Award went to Charlie Chaplin for his contribution to the
silent movie era and for his silent film ‘The Circus’.
While Warren Brothers was commended for making the first talking picture ‘The Jazz Singer’, - also receiving a Special Award!
Now, the origin of the term ‘OSCAR’ has remained disputed.
The Academy adopted this name from 1939 onwards it is stated.
OSCAR award has now become “the stuff dreams are made of”!
It is a gold-plated statuette of a knight 13.5 inches in height, weighing 8.5 pounds, was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons.
Annually awarded for honoring and encouraging excellence in all
facets of motion picture productions.

Movies During the Great Depression Era (1929-1941):
Musicals and dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers provided escapism and good entertainment during this age.
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it
backwards and in high heels,” - the critics had said.
This compatible pair entertained the viewers for almost one and
a half decade.
During the ‘30s, gangster movies were popular starring James Cagey, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
While family movies had their popular child artist Shirley Temple.
Swashbuckler films of the Golden Age saw the sword fighting scenes of Douglas Fairbank and Errol Flynn.
Flynn got idolized playing ‘Robin Hood’, this film was released in 1938 on the Big Screen.
Story of the American Civil War got presented in the epic ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939) with Clarke Gable and Vivian Leigh.
This movie received 8 Oscars including the award for the Best Film, - creating a landmark in motion picture’s history!
More serious movies like John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and John Ford’s  ‘How Green Was My Valley’, were released in 1940 and 1941 respectively.
While the viewers escaped that depressive age to the magical world
of  ‘Wizard of Oz’ with its actress Judy Garland most eagerly!
Let us not forget John Wayne the King of the Westerns, who began
his acting career in the 1930s with his movie ‘The Big Trail’;
He went on to complete 84 films before his career came to an end.
Beginning of the 40s also saw Bob Hope and the crooner Bing Crosby, who entertained the public and also the fighting troops.
For the Second World War (1939-45) had interrupted the Golden Age of Hollywood!
When actors like Henry Fonda, Clarke Gable, James Stewart and
Douglas Fairbanks joined the armed forces temporarily leaving
Hollywood.
Few propaganda movies supporting the war efforts were also made.
While landmark movies like ‘Philadelphia Story’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, were some of the most successful movies of that decade.  (The 1940s)
Now I come towards the end of my Hollywood Story with the decade  of the 1950s, thereby extending the period of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since having past the Great Depression and the Second World War,  
The Hollywood movie industry truly matured and came of age.

                        HOLLYWOOD  OF  THE  1950s
Backgroun­d:
The decade of the ‘50s was known for its post-war affluence and
choice of leisure time activities.
It was a decade of middle-class values, fast-food restaurants, and
drive-in- movies;
Of ‘baby-boom’, all-electric home, the first credit cards, and new fast moving cars like the Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Hudson, and Chevrolet.
But not forgetting the white racist terrorism in the Southern States!
This era saw the beginning of Cold War, with Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeding Harry S. Truman as the American President.
But for the film industry, most importantly, what really mattered  
was the advent of the Domestic TV.
When the older viewers preferred to stay at home instead of going
out to the movies.
By 1950, 10.5 million US homes had a television set, and on the
30th December 1953, the first Color TV went on sale!
Film industries used techniques such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision,
and gimmicks like 3-D techniques,
To get back their former movie audience back on their seats!
However, the big scene spectacle films did retain its charm and
fantasy.
Since fantasy epics like ‘The Story of Robin Hood’, and Biblical epics like ‘The Robe’, ‘Quo Vadis’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Ben-Hur’, did retain its big screen visual appeal.
‘The Robe’ released on 16th September 1953, was the first film shot
and projected in Cinema Scope;
In which special lenses were used to compress a wide image into a
standard frame and then expanded it again during projection;
Resulting in an image almost two and a half times as high and also as wide, - captivating the viewers imagination!

Demand For New Themes During The 1950s :
The idealized portrayal of men and women since the Second World War,
Now failed to satisfy the youth who sought exciting symbols for rebellion.
So Hollywood responded with anti-heroes with stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman.
They replaced conventional actors like Tyron Power, Van Johnson, and Robert Taylor to a great extent, to meet the requirement of the age.
Anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe with her vibrant *** appeal;
They provided excitement for the new generation with a change of scene.
Themes of rebellion against established authority was present in many Rock and Roll songs,
Including the 1954 Bill Hailey and His Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The era also saw rise to stardom of Elvis Presley the teen heartthrob!
Meeting the youthful aspirations with his songs like ‘Jailhouse Rock’!
I recall the lyrics of this 1957 film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ of my school days, which had featured the youth icon Elvis:
   “The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
     The prison band was there and they began to wail.
     The band was jumping and the joint began to sing,
     You should’ve heard them knocked-out jail bird sing.
     Let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell block……………
     Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,
     Little Joe was blowing the slide trombone.
     The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang!
     The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang, Let's rock...

Rock and Roll music began to tear down color barriers, and Afro-
American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard became
very popular!
Now I must caution my readers that thousands of feature films got  released during this eventful decade in Hollywood.
To cover them all within this limited space becomes an impossible
task, which may kindly be understood !
However, I shall try to do so in a summarized form as best as I could.

Box Office Hits Year-Wise From 1950 To 1959 :
Top Ten Year-Wise hit films chronologically are: Cinderella (1950),
Quo Vadis, The Greatest Show on Earth, Peter Pan, Rear Window,
Lady and the *****, Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River
Kwai, South Pacific, and Ben-Hur of 1959.

However Taking The Entire Decade Of 1950s Collectively,
The Top Films Get Rated As Follows Respectively:
The Ten Commandments, followed by Lady and the *****, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in Eighty Days, This is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth, Rear Window, South Pacific, The Robe, Giant, Seven Wonders of the World, White Christmas, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Sayonara, Demetrius and the Gladiator, Peyton Place, Some Like It Hot, Quo Vadis, and Auntie Mame.

Film Debuts By Rising Stars During The 1950s :
The decade of the ‘50s saw a number of famous film stars making
their first appearance.
There was Peter Sellers in ‘The Black Rose’, Marlon Brando in
‘The Men’, and actress Sophia Loren in ‘Toto Tarzan’.
Following year saw Charles Bronson in ‘You Are in the Navy Now’,
Audrey Hepburn in ‘Our Wild Oats’, and Grace Kelly, the future
Princess of Monaco, in her first film ‘Fourteen Hours’. (1951)
While **** Brigitte Bardot appeared in 1952 movie ‘Crazy for Love’; and 1953 saw Steve Mc Queen in ‘******* The Run’.
Jack Lemon, Paul Newman, and Omar Sharif featured in films
during 1954.
The following year saw Clint Eastwood, Shirley Mc Lean, Walter
Matthau, and Jane Mansfield, all of whom the audience adored.
The British actor Michael Cain appeared in 1956; also Elvis Presley
the youth icon in ‘Love Me Tender’ and as the future Rock and Roll
King!
In 1957 came Sean Connery, followed by Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave.
While the closing decade of the ‘50s saw James Coburn, along with
director, script writer, and producer Steven Spielberg, make their
debut appearance.

Death During The 1950s: This decade also saw the death of actors
like Humphrey Bogart, Tyron Power and Errol Flynn.
Including the death of producer and director of epic movies the
renowned Cecil B. De Mille!
Though I have conclude the Golden Age of Hollywood with the 50’s Decade,
The glitz and glamour of its Oscar Awards continue even to this day.
With its red carpet and lighted marquee appeal and fashion display!

CONTINUING THE HOLLYWOOD STORY  WITH  FEW TITBITS
From Fort Lee of New Jersey we have traveled west to Hollywood,
California.
From the silent movie days to the first ‘talking picture’ with Warren
Bros’ film ‘The Jazz Singer’.  (06 Oct 1927)
On 31st July 1928 for the first time the audience heard the MGM’s
mascot Leo’s mighty roar!
While in July 1929 Warren Bros’ first all-talking and all- Technicolor
Film appeared titled - ‘On With The Show’.
Austrian born Hedy Lamarr shocked the audience appearing **** in a Czechoslovak film ‘Ecstasy’!  (1933)
She fled from her husband to join MGM, becoming a star of the
‘40s and the ‘50s.
The ‘Private Life of Henry VII’ became the first British film to win the American Academy Award.  (1933)
On 11Dec 1934, FOX released ‘Bright Eyes’ with Shirley Temple, who  became the first Child artist to win this Award!
While in 1937 Walt Disney released the first full animated feature film titled - ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf ‘.
The British film director Alfred Hitchcock who came to Hollywood later;
Between 1940 and 1947, made great thrillers like ‘Rebecca’, ‘Notorious’,‘Rear Window’, and ‘Dial M for ******’.
But he never won an Academy Award as a Director!

THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD:
This award began in 1944 by the Foreign Correspondence Association at
Andrew Geary Dec 2014
Heads bob over waves, another couple
passes. Bennett on his bath towel,
burying his fingers in the sand,
legs pointing toward the sea.

Tries to escape through summer’s haze,
but only recalls the room some years ago:
students speaking of Antigone and he
finally uttering a thought, but his thought
Is thought superfluous. A silence entering
Bennett. Bennett becoming that silence.

But suddenly he is here again,
watching the muttering old man
with his metal detector.
The old man stops, his ugly
voice hushes, and bends
down to grasp the Earth.
He wonders what is there.
Jim Kleinhenz Apr 2010
'What they don’t know, of course,
is that you don’t **** with the Hammer.
The Hammer smiles, you smile, you wave the truck
ahead. It’s pretty simple,
for poetry does not make assertions;
philosophy does. When the Hammer speaks,
he speaks of something wild.  You stop your world,
the phony one, the constructed one. It stops
and stops and stops—'

I force open the lock, let in the sun.
The Hammer and I confront synaptic death
each day we live. What’s left is fire now.
‘Welcome to the Republic of the Sane.’
I smile and let the fresh air fill
the cabin, fill their lungs. The Seine is just
a river in France, right? I smile and say,
‘The hard part is over.’—though we all know
it isn’t. I tell them, ‘Wallace Stevens
once lived in this house’—though he didn’t.
Let be be finale of seem, I quote. I speak
with care. This is the current reply: The only
Emperor is the Emperor of ice cream.
We hold our arms heaven-ward, like
we are angels in heaven. Since it’s winter
I have a fire burning in the fireplace.
The kids can have a bedroom to themselves,
upstairs. There is hot water, take a bath…

‘In transit to the blank planet,’ I say.
‘That’s your answer: where we are, a point,
circumference points, vectors maybe,
an asymptotic self-description,
that’s the best answer to your question.’
We sit next to the fire
and listen to music. Tonight it’s Schubert,
Winterreise. I read a little from
The Hour of the Star. We talk about Adorno,
Emil Cioran, Gaston Bachelard, Chaucer.
We talk about poetic thinking. Is
the goal to have
an ultimate clarity or is
the poet’s mind composed of play
and speculation? I prevaricate,
I lie, deceive, evade. We open up
a decent bottle of port. The Hammer
has prepared calamari in a butter sauce.
There’s fresh pasta, fresh bread.
‘My friends, a toast,’ I say. They have to know.
‘Today’s word is vector, a vector like
ticks are for Lyme disease, mosquitoes for
malaria.’ The transmission of disease,
is that what humanity is? ‘Human
intelligence,’ I say, ‘may be the result
of a virus. It would explain a lot.’

Among the things we console ourselves with
I will put other people at the top.
I know, my dear, you tremble at the word
thing. ‘Think to say I and Thou’, you would say
were you here, were you still with me.
That people partake of Being as objects
is only part of the story. Well, perhaps, I err…
perhaps I do. One of the things I read
to the people who come across the line
is this from Clarice Lispector:
'It must be said the girl is not conscious
of my presence. Were it otherwise she would
have someone to pray for and that would mean
salvation. But I am fully conscious
of her presence: through her I utter my cry
of horror to existence. To this
existence I love so dearly.'
It is very beautiful, is it not?
© Jim Kleinhenz
AnnaStorm Jan 2015
Der er udstilling på onsdag
Jeg skal huske øl på fredag
Sov hos Emil til torsdag
Sidste udsalg mandag
Jeg kysser ham lørdag
Og mister ham søndag
Og glemmer ham tirsdag
TreadingWater Apr 2017
i  _ don't _ know
whatthisis
i'm calling it,
don't ^know ^if ^it's ^all ^too ^much
or if you _ don't _ know
how. to. love.
enough/ is/
enough
how you come
& go
while i just
stay
,...
 #put
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
when the original / “creative” part of you dies,
you tend to repeat,
it’s not that repetition is a sin of the craft of art,
it’s necessary to reap from the established boundaries,
you can then enter the realm of the banal
of work, you can become an electrician, a plumber,
a bus driver... although writing poetry,
and this is the redemption bit, you can never claim
a highbrow status for yourself,
you’re in the cauldron with the lot of them,
able to say within a disguise and a keen smile:
oh yes, the 30th of october 2015 was a lot different from
the 30th of october 2009;
unless you have a steady job that pays the rent
and allows you to dabble in transcendental art,
the **** you do on the sly, on the odd protruding appendix,
then, my darling, you can proudly say: me gombrowicz, me t.s. eliot...
this latter example just shows you how art is made into
a sacrilegious state of affairs, beatified in the lazed hours in between chores,
‘hey puppy, here’s 10 squid, clean up your room, say sorry.’
‘yes dada, 10 squid for a clean room and the words oh so so sorry.’*

i sometimes find, that a casual vocabulary usage
of a specialist term
for example, the most common
casual inference is done without prior knowledge
from the 1st & 3rd party associates
that make it their career path to understand
something as delicate as to not allow the butchers in
to solve the matter. the butchers? surgeons,
opticians, the ones that are not stuck
in the aristotelian abyss of trying to sort out
proper names from proper meanings -
even though the two run parallel:
proper names are usurped by synonymity
to make language more beautiful and perhaps more fluid
(as is true for the variations of hue in the visible spectrum),
with proper meanings allowing a word multiple meanings
giving way to chaos / loopholes in practicing law / ambiguity;
the most common apprehensive use of a technical term,
used as a metaphor is the word schizophrenia in the english language,
i’ve seen it many a times, casually reasoned this word
in the public realm looses all technicality... and as i mentioned
prior... because poeticised structured by mythology due to
the fact that it’s used as a metaphor... which is staggering...
given the fact that i have a bit of literature on the matter
i thought it would be worth pointing this out,
depression is not inferred casually in the public realm
the realm of bibliophobes - i’m not saying people do not read
or are evasive of these s y m b o l s, i’m talking a depth of reading,
i’m talking a breadth of reading, patience with technicality,
real-life examples that are not shunned for that patent maxim:
ignorance is bliss.
as you might have noted i understand the technical term
to have been claimed by the public for casual usage (i.e. schizophrenia),
and if this is the case, i have to regress to the origins
which takes me back to emil kraepelin, although changing the compound
name, like i might with hydroxychloroquine...
the original compound was known at the time as dementia praecox
(premature dementia)... given that i propose a change to dementia construo,
given the fact that the sufferer of this condition contracted this
disease at a young age, and has not accomplished much in life
in terms of materialism of safety and boasting competence,
it is indeed a condition that can be defined by its prematurity
(stressors for success, as established by the ruling party, ideology
based upon innovation, education and appearances)
and the constructive aspect of it - based upon the anti-psychiatric movement’s
notion of an inclusion of a self itemised with the tools true or false.
why this latter point? nietzsche would have probably agreed with me,
beyond good and evil? there’s only truth and falsehood,
this the most likely square pairing.
K-ROB May 2020
Steve
April 29, 1967-October 7, 2018
Miss You Buddy

No sunset in this park today.
But of course not, for today is your birthday.
Everywhere I look, all I see is grey!

The Angels are weeping so we don’t have to; that’s not what you would want.
You would want us to share our memories and trust me I have 4 pages front and back,
AT LEAST!

You were taken too soon, no time to adapt
So unexpected and you were the happiest I’d seen you
With Ivan home and Emil good, and Jackson to fill the dull moments
“Action Jackson”, that’s what you called him
And so did my Papa Dale

You loved that he loved music,
You wanted to teach him to play catch.
You were making progress, taking steps

I miss your loyal, honest and witty ***
Oh,and I started studying numerology!
You’ll never guess your number!
#1
But I’m sure that comes as no surprise
You would have loved it!!!

Hope you are up there watching baseball, drinking beer, listening to music,
and telling stories about your family
with your old military pals!
I miss you dear friend
I miss your home, it was my 2nd
No judgement ever
We all had our ****,
Different days, different times
But we rallied together to help, and have a good time
You and I never fought except maybe for a second
We playfully fought about baseball
You were a die hard Cubs fan,
and I was team Cards!

You were getting back on track,
on your way to work
No way is that fair
I miss you dear friend
Your stories, your humor
You making fun of Blair slickly,
us laughing til we cried
I miss your heart, you’re real, you’re true
FAMILY WAS EVERYTHING
and the rest, music, military, beer,
baseball, laughing, and Laura
You were a simple man
You knew exactly who you were at all times
That I always admired
You thought you knew it all; you probably did!
I miss kicking back people watching on the front porch or music in the garage!

Miss your stories, your humor, your strong will
And that 2nd place I thought of as home.

Loved your dad when he was here and loved both Emil and Ivan instantly upon meeting
I hope your kids know if they need anything, to call
You stepped up for Jackson,
That really says it all!

I miss you buddy, til next time...
I raise this beer
One of my best friends passed away too soon, and I wrote this poem for him on his birthday
leonard gorski Jan 2016
For Emil Varda
Spots we dwell
For while,

People we meet
On the Way...

Call from Unknown
Is a milestone.

The world is a pair
Of wings - to unfold,
The world might be heavy stone.
Today you were born
And I wasn't there
I wanted to be

I wanted to hear you first coo
I wanted to tell you
Welcome to this world
I love you

I wanted to capture the beginning
To put pictures in a book for you
You are my grandson
Your daddy is my son

He has made me so proud
He has grown into a amazing
man
I am so excited for you
Your life will be filled with love
With fun and adventure
You are my joy
Your grandma loves you
and just know
I will always be here for you
Happy Birthday Rex Emil Bear

© Jennifer Delong 1/26/24
Rex Emil Bear  my 2nd grandson . 1/26/24  7:11 am ..
irinia Nov 2015
I'm passing through an autumn day
As through an enormous tear.
A fruit full ripe with perfume sweet
Sinks slowly slowly  to my feet.

I'm passing through the wind and light.
I've never known the reason why
Seasons gone remain as branches
In those unclaimed yet by the night.

Emil Brumaru
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac
Maria Mitea Jul 2023
we learned to sit like birds on a wire,
the bicycle,
unicycle, the backward somersault,
the front somersault, the chair on the wire,
the bed on a cloud,
seated in a hyperloop toilet,
69,
96 in an 8,
jumping through hoops: what we are doing here?
it looks almost unreal, so
we started to reinvent the wire, like emil cioran,
we reinvented insomnia and
the otherness …
Vincent robinson May 2019
You are Pascal
the ghost in my dreams,
and you are Emil
the spirit of my aspirations,
then there is Thomas
the visiting thought
that drifts uncalled into
the mystery of my being.

So here you are
a sorry bunch hiding
in the dark corners
of my mind.

Do you think Pascal
that you are wiser than me?
And you other two,
what about you?
Silence is what you are
for I know you
have answers
or none perhaps that
I could understand
And I cannot command you
though I should.
Things are desperate in Niger with noma [noma (pathology) A gangrenous disease leading to tissue destruction of the face, especially the mouth and cheek].
Emil Cerda Jun 2020
"What else could I ask from you, Sofia?
Knowing that loving you is a challenge.
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy,
And I don't trust my foolish brain.

"It's that I have had girlfriends in my biography.
And in the beauty I distrust,
I better do you a tomography,
Because I trust your brain the most.

"When love is gone comes the epitaph,
That it is buried in Philadelphia.
The memory becomes the cenotaph,
When she remembers you weren't ****.

"Remember when you inhaled gofio?
... pretending to own the mob,
And Elifio's lover,
But the doctor detected you an atrophy.

"That you are Ecuadorian, it is because of the geography!
That you make references, is for the bibliography!
What do you know how to write it's because of the orthography!
That you «*******» a lot it's the fault of *******!

"«I feel» something for you; take me an x-ray;
Don't worry, I photograph my heart.
For you to understand the video, Sofia;
My heart beats like white-crested elaenia.

"The dance your betrayal didn't choreographed.
I laugh, since maybe it filmographed
In another part of the scenography.
I saw you in bed with him, Sofia,
And with your mobile, I took a picture of you.

"Anyway: if I am born again, Sofia,
I will study ethnography
To evade you; love wrote:
Emil doesn't believe in your «love», and that stunted him."
Poem written on the back of the book Modification of Conduct, by Garry Martín. A book that Emil had bought.
Emil Cerda Nov 2019
A fan came to me and said: "Emil, how do you get out of the bad comments unharmed?" To which I replied:

«Once upon a time there was a snake from Equatorial New Guinea, juggling a circus; One day, the owner fired her because "supposedly" she had bitten one of her interlocutors. The snake tried to defend itself by saying that it had not done so, however, it did not work out. A month later, the snake got a job at a magic and party products store; the owner of the circus where the snake worked, entered, and without realizing that the snake was working in that place, he asked for leeches and left the establishment. What nobody knows is that the owner bought leeches to put them under the seats of the spectators, and that they bite the spectators, and fire one by one of their employees from the circus just because, And so, entering new personnel because, consequently, they had "bad acts"».

Moral: If you know who you are, no matter the time or the noun, you will always know that those who speak badly about you, or want you evil, is because they have a mirage of themselves, and that you have, they would like to possess it.
Lawrence Hall Apr 19
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      “Anglo-Saxon Students Would Not Like to Be Taught by a Jew”

                                                      cited in
                   -Stanley Kunitz Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius

To the Privileged Youth of Columbia University:

As a child of situational poverty
I am so grateful for all my Jewish teachers

Including

Moses
Joshua
Jeremiah
Samuel
David
Solomon
J­esus, Mary, and Joseph
Saint Peter and the others in The Twelve
Saint Paul
Elie Weisel

Chaim Potok
Herman Wouk
Leon Uris
Franz Kafka
Leonard Cohen
Anne Frank
Bernard Malamud
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Philip Roth
Osip Mandelstam

Saul Bellow
Isaac Asimov
Woody Allen
Mel Brooks
Edna Ferber
Yip Harburg
George Cukor
Mel Brooks
Oscar Hammerstein
Alan Lerner

Carl Reiner
Rod Serling
Franz Werfel
Alan Arkin
Claire Bloom
Leonard Nimoy
Chaim Topol
Ed Asner
Mel Brooks
Peter Falk
Werner Klemperer

Jack Klugman
Walter Matthau
Tony Randall
Mel Torme
John Banner
Kirk Douglas
Lorne Greene
Eli Wallach
Sam Wanamaker
Morey Amsterdam

Leo Genn
Otto Preminger
Jack Benny
Leslie Howard
Ernst Lubitsch
Cecil B. DeMille
Mortimer Adler
Allen Bloom
Harold Bloom
Irving Berlin

Boris Pasternak
Emil Ludwig
Eric Wolfgang Korngold
Elmer Bernstein
Max Steiner
George Gershwin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Samuel Fuller
Alexander Korda
Zoltan Korda

Emeric Pressburger
Erich von Stroheim
Billy Wilder
William Wyler
Fred Zinnemann
J. J. Abrams
Peter Bogdanovich
Michael Curtiz
Stanley Donen
Stanley Kramer

Howard Caine
Leon Askin
Robert Clary
Dinah Shore
Stephen Sondheim
Volodymyr Zelinsky
Simon Schama
Louise Gluck
Siegfried Sassoon
Isaac Rosenberg

Joseph Brodsky
Rob Morrow
Vasily Grossman
Stanley Kubrick
Viktor Frankl

And more, so many more, a cloud of witnesses
Whose names are written in gold on a scroll in Heaven

But somehow, in this world of beauty and truth
And humanity’s aspirations to the good
All you have found are bullhorns, trash fires, chants
Clinched fists, obscenities, lies, and shrieking hate
Anti-Semitism
Emil Cerda Apr 2020
"It wasn't the heart that wanted
To be like the intruder,
Time is short and short as the diver,
Without his camouflage under the floor.

"Too bad for me, I didn't love;
Too bad for me, I didn't give myself up.

"There are people like me.
There are worse, in my situation.

"I am not grateful.
I am inconsiderate.
So much so that I don't know who did it:
A perfect world, all in my lap.

"I am not Emil Cerda,
I am an unrepeatable time,
And sad;
That wants to be hired,
That wants to be read.
But, God made me like this.
Thank you Jesus,
But today, maybe I will die better."
I had to beat them off with sticks. It distresses me a lot. Many kindly women can't whistle naturally because of the stick-beatings that they deserved from me and got without cost or obligation.

Folks in his vicinity speak of  the sweetness that was Andy Griffith,
while syrupy slurries define what ***** Emil Brach's candy myth is*
*after the 3 centuries lost to Heribert Illig's phantom time hypothesis
“That his 'Diary of a Futurist' didn't possess common sense, but instead a sense of its own, seemed decidedly to be in his favor ...Once in a joking mood he (Henry Miller) explained the origin of his creativity to Emil Schnellock: 'Well may you ask on what meat doth Caesar feed that he can spew such vile vomitings.” -- from page 110 of Always Merry And Bright: The Life of Henry Miller by Jay Martin (1978)
Folks in his vicinity speak of  the sweetness that was Andy Griffith,
while syrupy slurries define what ***** Emil Brach's candy myth is
after the 3 centuries lost to Heribert Illig's phantom time hypothesis
Mayberry's spasmodic rubes'll spazz spastically into sandy cliff pits
to rate the cocky germination of contrasexual, queerly-baited minds
amongst the needles of citric-acid-rich-spruce-beer-rendering pines,
Coca Cola bikini babes snort coca tropane ******* in crooked lines
illiterate & analphabetic to coke's grungy alkaloid nature & designs
on the brain's V.T.A. mesolimbic pathways hid under cortexic rinds
as surely as sodium hydroxide lye to human eyes ulcerates & blinds
to make it more difficult to pay those ever-escalating seat-belt fines
while into our precious eye socket orbits each killer restraint grinds
like a nose ring or cinched girdle or delta harness that cruelly binds
like panicked ******* after the power company turned off the lights
in a warehouse of dobies that bite out mega chunks with their bites
we are horrified that whitey will deny our federal food-stamp rights
for the purpose of inciting plagiarist Alex Haley/Kunta Kinte fights
Folks in his vicinity speak of  the sweetness that was Andy Griffith,
while syrupy slurries define what ***** Emil Brach's candy myth is
after the 3 centuries lost to Heribert Illig's phantom time hypothesis
Mayberry's spasmodic rubes'll spazz spastically into sandy cliff pits
to rate the cocky germination of contrasexual, queerly-baited minds
amongst the needles of citric-acid-rich-spruce-beer-rendering pines,
Coca Cola bikini babes snort coca tropane ******* in crooked lines
illiterate & analphabetic to coke's grungy alkaloid nature & designs
on the brain's V.T.A. mesolimbic pathways hid under cortexic rinds
as surely as sodium hydroxide lye to human eyes ulcerates & blinds
to make it more difficult to pay those ever-escalating seat-belt fines
while into our precious eye socket orbits each killer restraint grinds
like a nose ring or cinched girdle or delta harness that cruelly binds
like panicked ******* after the power company turned off the lights
in a warehouse of dobies that bite out mega chunks with their bites
we are horrified that whitey will deny our federal food-stamp rights
for the purpose of inciting plagiarist Alex Haley/Kunta Kinte fights
Folks in his vicinity speak of  the sweetness that was Andy Griffith,
while syrupy slurries define what ***** Emil Brach's candy myth is
after the 3 centuries lost to Heribert Illig's phantom time hypothesis
Mayberry's spasmodic rubes'll spazz spastically into sandy cliff pits
to rate the cocky germination of contrasexual, queerly-baited minds
amongst the needles of citric-acid-rich-spruce-beer-rendering pines,
Coca Cola bikini babes snort coca tropane ******* in crooked lines
illiterate & analphabetic to coke's grungy alkaloid nature & designs
on the brain's V.T.A. mesolimbic pathways hid under cortexic rinds
as surely as sodium hydroxide lye to human eyes ulcerates & blinds
to make it more difficult to pay those ever-escalating seat-belt fines
while into our precious eye socket orbits each killer restraint grinds
like a nose ring or cinched girdle or delta harness that cruelly binds
like panicked ******* after the power company turned off the lights
in a warehouse of dobies that bite out mega chunks with their bites
we are horrified that whitey will deny our federal food-stamp rights
for the purpose of inciting plagiarist Alex Haley/Kunta Kinte fights

— The End —