Great Scenes from the Movies #5

The protagonist Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe), the silent one lunching with his Stasi commander, says nothing throughout this cafeteria scene in "The Lives of Others."

Study his face and you'll see nothing that betrays what he actually feels, though a creeping level of discomfort with the proceedings may finally provide a clue.

The youths are the faces of the emerging new Germany.

This tragic story is one of my favorite movies of recent years, a top 10 pick for sure.



Sadly, Ulrich Muhe died of stomach cancer in 2007, a year after the film's release.


TS

Buddy Dooley Emerges from the Ether

If you know anything about this blog at all you know that I have a friend/nemesis named Buddy Dooley, who occasionally casts himself as an expert regarding all things literary and makes every effort he can to get under my skin. Sporadically, we sit down with an old-fashioned tape machine and talk about the weather or whatever else crosses our boggled minds. Buddy drinks, has a refrigerator teeming with good Oregon micro brews, so I tolerate him. We cracked a few open the other day and let the tape roll.

BD: You've shamed me.

TS: How's that, old Buddy Dooley?

BD: That crap you've put up on your header, on this monstrosity you refer to as Round Bend Press. That nonsense about your so-called book, "Four Absurd Plays", or whatever you're calling it.

TS: Your quote? Are you talking about your wonderful quote?

BD: I didn't say any of that. I don't like the book. Can you get a clear picture of that? I didn't like the fucking book!

TS: What the hell? You didn't say you didn't like the book!

BD: Stop, please. What I said was--listen carefully dumb ass--"Simons' book made me want to throw up, such is its alarmingly stupid emptiness and hollow tenor. That makes me feel joyous."

TS: You did not say that!

BD: That is exactly what I said. I have it on tape. You turned it into some kind of praise or misrepresentation of how I actually feel about your work. You're worse than a fucking politician.

TS: Piss on you, Buddy Dooley.

BD: You've done your potential readers out there, and they are few and far between, a terrible disservice. That book is awful. You are awful. You can't write!

TS: How many of those Old Lompoc Specials have you had today, pal?

BD: Now aren't you clever? It is suddenly my problem that you are a shitty writer because I drink too many micro beers each and every day? Is that how it works? Jesus! You're about a half-step away from becoming a fucking dictator. Who the fuck was Mussolini? A failed fucking journalist. Same with Hitler, a bad fucking artist. You gonna become one of those guys? Can't sell a god damned book, so you're gonna turn into a fucking Castro?

TS: Tsk, tsk...You have any beer left?

BD: Change the subject if you can.

TS: No, I'm just thirsty. Listening to you makes me thirsty.

BD: I'll get you a brew in a minute. First, I want to get to the bottom of this header thing on your blogpage or whatever the fuck you call it. Why?

TS: Why what?

BD: Why did you misquote me?

TS: Fuck you, I'll get my own micro brew!

(at this point I did get up and walk into Buddy's kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and took out a nice micro brew for my chafed throat)

BD: Don't drink all my god damned beer, Simons!

TS: Buddy, you have more beer in here than a twenty-dollar street whore has johns.

BD: Fuck, look at this! Fuck, look at this would you!

TS: What?

(I race back into Buddy's living room in time to see him stomp the shit out of a cockroach the size of a field mouse)

BD: You sonofabitch, Simons!

TS: What, you sniveling-assed crybaby!

BD: I hate you! I hate you! I hate your god damned soul. You're drinking all of my micro brews!

(click)


TS

Great Scenes from the Movies #4

Allen and Keaton in "Annie Hall."



Allen has made so many good movies it's hard to pick a favorite scene. Opinion is divided on Allen. People seem to either love or hate him.

Marshall McLuhan: How you got to teach a course in anything is amazing...
Allen: Boy, if life were only like this.


TS

Deemer and Round Bend on PNBA List

We (Round Bend Press and Charles Deemer) are on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's list of nominees for the 2012 awards season. That's right, we're mingling with the big boys now.

I Think Again of Those Ancient Chinese Poets by Tom Sexton--U. Alaska Press
In My Old Age: Poems by Charles Deemer--Round Bend Press
Land Sharks by S.L. Stoner-- Yamhill Press

Deemer's In My Old Age will be evaluated by a committee of nine to determine its status as a potential awardee, with all the rights and promotional privileges accorded therein.

There must be nine sharp readers out there, right?

This is a highly visible annual award that could garner RBP some much-needed love and make Deemer a wealthy old man.

But don't wait for the award announcement in 2012. Go for it right now.

Here is the complete list of PNBA nominees at its website.


TS

Great Scenes from the Movies #3

A continuous crane shot of nearly four minutes helps make this opening of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" a classic scene.

.

When will the car blow up? How many innocent lives will be lost? What in the hell is going on?

"I've got this ticking noise in my head..."

That, friends, is compelling movie making.


TS

Hold the Anchovies!

The U.S.economy is in shambles for most Americans.

But certain corporate profits have soared, thanks to the cozy deal between congress and the contractors who keep the good old military industrial complex humming.

Here's an in-depth look at what it all means, complete with those telling charts and graphs everybody loves as much as a slice of pizza pie.

Is any further evidence of the sheep-like docility of Americans necessary? To put up with this is a sure sign of rampant stupidity.

Unless your business is war profiteering, of course.


TS

Great Scenes from the Movies #2

This is the classic fight scene from Chaplin's "City Lights." With the introduction of "talkies" some of the physical aspects of movie humor faded. This was about as good as it got before the sound revolution changed movie making.

I like movies with great dialog, of course, but sight gags, as well as unspoken storytelling in dramatic work, always enhance the art of film.

Chaplin is terrified when his upcoming opponent, smoking a cigarette no less, knocks out another fighter in the locker room before the bout.

But he's game. So how will he fare?


TS

How Good is Jeter?

No Bambino or Gehrig, yet he's had a brilliant career.

Are you ready for the All-Star break? I am.

Jeter by the numbers: Jeter's career.


TS

The Wisdom of an Old Friend

My friend Chris Pilon, who lives in Houston with his lovely wife Vicki, is on a major Bukowski bender.

There are worse places to be.

He sends along the best of CB's quotes right here.

Thanks Chris. It is always a pleasure to hear from your Texass (spit!)ass!

"That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen."
— Charles Bukowski (Women)

"It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"
— Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

Ah, Bukowski, America's greatest dead writer!


TS

Poem

When My Quest to Write a Poem Ended in Failure I Said to Hell with it and Poured Myself a Strong Drink Before the Sun Came Up

The other day I
let a poem slip away
Now I am content


TS

A Smash Hit

People out there in cyberland are into it.

They Google "old age poems" regularly, and land here for a peek at Charles Deemer's new Round Bend Press publication, In My Old Age.

"In My Old Age" is a first rate book. Death, with its looming finality, certainty, and utter mystery, is the greatest theme of all, of course. But this book is about more than that. It is about seeing and living out the string. It is about facing the end head on, and laughing all the way.

Damn, I am pleased Round Bend Press is attached to such an important book. I'm two years into the RBP project. Along with K.C. Bacon's "Morandi's Bottles" (see sidebar), this one sets the standard for what I'm attempting to do in my own advancing years.

The book is a sight and sound feast. Don't miss out. Buy it now.



TS

New Cover for Four Absurd Plays

I never felt too fond of the simple cannibal scene on my cover of "Four Absurd Plays," so I've been exploring a few new options.

I like this one, featuring a painting by Charles Lucas. I've a message out for Lucas seeking his approval on this. If he goes for it, I think this is the one.

Late word. It's a done deal. This is the newest cover of Four Absurd Plays.


TS

New Book Cover/Revised Edition

Per the suggestion of an influential critic with a solid argument, I've created a new cover and cut a portion of the title from my 2009 novel, "The Friends of Round Bend."

This is a crime story set in a fictional Oregon coastal town called Round Bend. The novel represents my first effort at self-publishing. I liked the sound of the name so much I named the press after the title.

The entire point is to create myth, isn't it? Myth of place and events.

Anyway, I like this one better than the previous cover. The noir feel suits the story which is set in the foothills of the coastal range under increasingly dark skies, literally and metaphorically.

By shortening the title, I preserve the integrity of the mystery, such as it is in the novel.

It's just a better book now. I'm almost pleased with it, a two-year project that I can't set aside because I'm neurotic about it.


TS

Opening Lines (U to Z)

Let's wrap up this fun business (well, for me at any rate). I've gathered 26 poets' opening lines, a random list from A to Z, which surprise, riveting the reader to an opening, a full-frontal assault on the poetic imagination--a kind of literary "shock and awe" that doesn't leave any doubt about who is in command of the voice.

Real poetry, in other words.

It's been great. Thanks for your indulgence. The poet pictured is Arizona's Lisa Zaran.

Untermeyer

Eleven o’clock, and the curtain falls.
The cold wind tears the strands of illusion;

Voznesensky

There is Bukashkin, our neighbor,
in underpants of blotting paper,

Welch

Not yet 40, my beard is already white.
Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red,

Xavier

I escape the horrors of war
with a towel and a room

Yeats

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid

L. Zaran

Death is not the final word.
Without ears, my father still listens,



TS

Northwest by No Northwest

I've been fortunate enough here at RBP to recently publish a few poetry books by a pair of writers whose work I believe merits serious praise.

While not being one to limit writing or writers to their regional qualities, I'll indulge those who worry about such matters by allowing this--K.C. Bacon and Charles Deemer are Northwest writers who have earned their regional merit badges.

Neither was born in this part of the U.S. (I was, and believe me--I am nothing like these guys, who are driven, determined, and obsessed with their work. I am laid back, lazy, cynical, and so "Oregon" that you would have a tough time distinguishing me from a dead, old Douglas fir were you to come across us in the Oregon Cascades).

As late-comers, K.C. and Charles earned their badges by living in the Northwest for many years and paying attention to and absorbing the qualities that comprise the Northwestern milieu. They have done so while filtering this place through much more sophisticated worldviews than are usually noticed in average Northwesterners. They have also, to some extent, left it all behind them as dust in their careers.

Still, in my pantheon, they are linked to Snyder, who was born here and moved away; Kesey, who mainly stuck around; Roethke, who lived and worked in Seattle for many years; and Carver, who roamed the West Coast as a vagabond storyteller.

Which tells me they have absorbed those artists' work in deliberate consideration of where they are and what it meant to be transplanted into this unique place long ago, even if they have more recently heard the sirens of else and other.

They caught the Northwest vibe years ago (I've been fighting the chill of the backwoods hick's voice my entire life, which may make me seem like a phony at times as I beckon the urban muses).

Interestingly, both Bacon and Deemer were Navy brats, which is hardly a strictly Northwest consideration, discounting the Puget Sound area. They haven't anything of the logger and woodsman in them, which was my milieu for better or worse, and which is dying even as I type this, though pockets of resistance may be found in the hinterlands.

Enough! Praise the poets!


Here is a poem from K.C. Bacon's Morandi's Bottles, published in April by Round Bend Press.


LEAF


An unexpected sight
Is sometimes all it takes
To see right sense in things.

And so it was today
When I saw, tumbling down,
A leaf ahead of winter’s brink

With a pale halo of life
Fluttering its red edges,
Disposed of by its tree.

In that alone moment
The almanac of time
Read true. All things shall die.

Such for you, such for me.
For we shall, too, find fall
At some last lasting place,

In our crimson tatters
And deciduous dreams,
Completed, at rest

In the dirt and the moss,
Caught in the limbs of that
Generous azalea.

And only then shall we find
The harmony and grace
That is final provenance.

Before my life is
Downed like this fallen leaf,
I repeat this now to you:

I saw your face once first.
It endures with me.
Life was not love til now.

K.C. Bacon


And this, from Charles Deemer's June, 2011 RBP release In My Old Age.

Sometimes I Awake

sometimes I awake
feeling like a character
in a Kafka novel
life imprisonment
without a charge

sometimes I awake
and feel instant disappointment
not another day

sometimes I awake
my head filled
with Mulligan riffs
let's boogie!

sometimes I awake
and I am younger
and she is younger
and we are younger

sometimes I awake
the dog licking my face
we have to stop
meeting like this

sometimes I awake
a moment of panic
where am I?
who am I?

sometimes I awake
but only for a moment
a return to sleep
as silent as prayer

sometimes I awake
at the end of a speech
to great applause
an award I think
but maybe not

sometimes I awake
feeling like myself

I ache therefore I am

Charles Deemer


TS