photo © Denis-Constant Martin 1975
…For Bra Louis
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
“The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.”
….
[Tennyson, Morte d’Arthur]
So it is that this mighty chapter is closed. Our Knights are now all gone. This wondrous story of bold souls believing in themselves
and venturing all over the globe with nothing but their music, their hope, determination and love of life and their openness to adventure.
As Chris once stated in an interview: “We are too soon old, and too late wise.”
But too soon gone.
These were my Stravinskys, my Inca Warriors, my flawed gems.
And I loved them all.
Krishnamurti
“You know, if we understand one question rightly, all questions are answered. But we don’t know how to ask the right question. To ask the right question demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. Here is a question, a fundamental question: is life a torture? It is, as it is; and man has lived in this torture centuries upon centuries, from ancient history to the present day, in agony, in despair, in sorrow; and he doesn’t find a way out of it.
Therefore he invents gods, churches, all the rituals, and all that nonsense, or he escapes in different ways.
What we are trying to do, during all these discussions and talks here, is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind, not accept things as they are, nor revolt against them. Revolt doesn’t answer a thing.
You must understand it, go into it, examine it, give your heart and your mind, with everything that you have, to find out a way of living differently.
That depends on you, and not on someone else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru; there is no Master, no Saviour. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil; you are the Master; you are the guru; you are the leader; you are everything. And to understand is to transform what is.
I think that will be enough, won’t it?”
― J. Krishnamurti
Memories of a dear friend
There is biological family and also chosen family.
Sometimes you meet people almost by accident
And you end up being important to each other
Not be design, but by natural development.
Since sometime around 1995, Hilary was real found and chosen family.
She displayed real independence of mind and spirit
And endless generosity.
It is hard for me to accept that she is no longer here
I can no longer just pick up the phone and pick up our conversation from the last meeting or call.
And I wasn’t even there when she died.
Helpless regrets of a wayward chosen younger brother.
Movie quotes (without permission)
===
Hal Hartley:: Surviving Desire
===
Sophia: Do you think I’m very beautiful?
Jude: Yes.
Sophia: If you never see me again after tonight, will you be sad?
Jude: .. Don’t worry about it.
Sophia: Yes, but.. you know.. will you be tortured by the memory of having been with me.. of having caressed me.. will you wonder if I’m with other men.. will you be jealous.. will you become obsessed.. will you carry your disappointment around with you forever.. will you be maudlin and antisocial.. will you get into fights.. will you expect other women to be somehow more like me.. my mouth, my eyes, the way I wear my hair.. will you.. will you be like that, do you think?
Jude: ..Perhaps.
Sophia: It’s the nature of things, you know.. regret.
===
Aki Kaurismaki:: Rikos ja rangaistus (Crime & Punishment)
===
Rahikainen: We’ve all got to die sometime. And there won’t be a heaven afterwards, just something else.
Eeva: What?
Rahikainen: Spiders, or something. How would I know?
===
Rainer Werner Fassbinder:: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
===
Das gluck ist nicht immer lustig “Happines isn’t always fun” (My friend Boris says the true translation is “Happiness isn’t always funny”)
Ali: No cry. Why cry?
Emmi: Because I’m so happy and so full of fear too.
Ali: Not fear. Fear no good. Fear eats the soul.
===
Alain Resnais:: Hiroshima mon Amour
===
>> You saw nothing in Hiroshima.
> Four times at the museum.
>> What museum in Hiroshima?
> Four times at the museum in Hiroshima. I saw people walking around. People walk around, lost in thought, among the photographs, the reconstructions, for lack of anything else. The photographs, the photographs, the reconstructions, for lack of anything else. The explanations, for lack of anything else. Four times at the museum in Hiroshima. I watched the people. I myself, lost in thought, looked at the scorched metal. The twisted metal. Metal made as vulnerable as flesh. I saw the bouquet of bottle caps. Who would have thought? Human flesh suspended as if still alive, its agony still fresh. Stones. Charred stones. Shattered stones. Anonymous masses of hair that the women of Hiroshima, upon waking in the morning, would find had fallen out.
It was hot in Peace Square. 10,000 degrees in Peace Square. I know it. The temperature of the sun in Peace Square. How could you not know it? The grass. It’s quite simple.
>> You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.
===
Hal Hartley:: Simple Men
===
Bill: Pretty woman.
Martin: She’s got principles.
Bill: Principled pretty woman.
Martin: Kate ain’t told a lie in her whole life.
Bill: Have you known her long?
Martin: For a while. I used to work with her ex-husband.
Bill: You mean the angry, dangerous, psychotic ex-husband?
Martin: Now just hold on. Jack may be dangerous, he may even be psychotic, but I don’t think he’s angry!
===
Woody Allen:: Love and Death
===
Sonja: Boris, Let me show you how absurd your position is. Let’s say there is no God, and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses. What prevents you from murdering somebody?
Boris: Murder’s immoral.
Sonja: Immorality is subjective.
Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Not in a rational scheme of perception.
Boris: Perception is irrational. It implies immanence.
Sonja: But judgment of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstracted empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.
Boris: Yeah, I’ve said that many times.
===
Hal Hartley:: The Unbelievable Truth
===
Joshua: Why are you so sure the human race is going to kill itself?
Audrey: Because it can.
Joshua: That doesn’t necessarily mean it will.
Audrey: The human race has never invented anything it didn’t use.
Joshua: But that’s not the last word.
Audrey: What’s the last word?
Joshua: I don’t know. Faith, maybe.
Audrey: Which one: faith or maybe?
Audrey: You can’t have faith in people, only the deals you make with them. People are only as good as the deals they make and keep.
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Hal Hartley:: Not a movie quote
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There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. If you make a chair, you want to make a nice chair. You want people to admire it. I think doing something well is a form of respect for humanity in general. I have found that all incompetence comes from not paying attention, which comes from people doing something that they don’t want to do. And doing what you don’t want to do means either you have no choice, or you don’t think that the moments of your life are worth fighting for.