C

So I just ate lunch at this place that was like, "Sorry, all our fries are waffle fries," and I was like, "Good."

[courtbouillon]

But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need...

Walter Raleigh

http://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/210/marlowe/shepherd_&_notes.htm

[courtbouillon]

The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on ships or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming.

Basho

[bettedavis111-deactivated201703]

Myrna Loy visits the citizens of her hometown in Helena, Montana at Marlow Theater, 1940

[courtbouillon]

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words Get it wrong. We say bread and it means according to which nation. French has no word for home, and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people in northern India is dying out because their ancient tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would finally explain why the couples on their tombs are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they seemed to be business records. But what if they are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light. O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper, as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor. Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script is not a language but a map. What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

Jack Gilbert, “The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart”

[courtbouillon]

Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning: the only film I like that could possibly be described as a horror film is Alien (1979)*. Fortunately for all of us, Halloween is not a time for watching horrifying things, but rather romantic/comedic type things with ghosts and witches in them. Here is a brief list of films I’ve watched this October–and that you could watch too!–that fit right in this sweet spot. 

1. I Married A Witch (1942) This is delightful, although extremely insubstantial and a touch more dated than many other things that have come down to us from 1942. I actually would have sworn that this was made 8-10 years earlier, just based on the look and feel of the film. But, I’m sorry, it’s a story about a witch burnt during the Salem witch trials whose spirit is released 270 years later and attempts to seduce the descendent of the man who burned her? It stars Veronica Lake and Frederic March? That’s freaking Robert Benchley playing the doctor??? Its virtues far outweigh its faults. Also in October we grade movies like this on a curve. 

2. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) I THINK THIS MOVIE IS HILARIOUS. How much you like it may depend on your tolerance for repeated sight gags in which Costello doesn’t realize various monsters are trying to kill him/the monsters disappear right before Abbott walks in. My tolerance for this is of course, very high, since I was inoculated in childhood, and I suggest doing the same for your own offspring. Autumnal booster shots also encouraged. 

3. The Wolf Man (1941) My favorite classic Universal Horror. Not technically a comedy like everything else on this list, but also not actually really scary! Maybe it was in 1941, but I’m not actually sure how much the sight of a man’s feet getting progressively hairier ever really frightened anyone. Also the idea of Lon Chaney, Jr. as a handsome leading man is a bit funny, right? But I just generally really enjoy this movie. And it’s where popular culture gets a ton of our werewolf myths! And everytime they recite that darn poem it’s just creepy enough (but not too creepy!) 

Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night,  May still become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms,  And the Autumn moon is bright. 

Shivers, right? But pleasant shivers. 

4. Arsenic And Old Lace (1944) Okay. I thought Cary Grant was overdoing it a trifle when I first saw this, and I think I was about 7 years old. And he is. He overacts dreadfully through the whole thing, but…I still enjoy this movie? Especially in the days leading up to Halloween. The trivia section on IMDb, (where I do most of my highly academic film research,) tells me it’s Capra’s fault that everyone overacts because he told them to and then went off to make propaganda films and all the most egregious takes got used. That may be true, (although I kind of think all the performances except Grant’s are fine,) but this is still actually sort of the perfect Halloween movie. 

5. Bell, Book and Candle (1958) In the pursuit of perfect honesty, I haven’t re-watched this one yet because I bought the DVD in a fit of lunacy from Amazon yesterday (with 2 extra books so I could meet the $35 limit for free one-day shipping,) and it only just arrived. But in my memories of watching this 10-15 years ago it’s LOVELY HALLOWEEN FUN, okay? Plus, it has Elsa Lanchester in it apparently (not a thing I had any memory of before buying it,) and she’s always a plus in a spooky movie. 

Happy Halloween, y’all. 

————————————————————————————— *This is a complete lie, but feels true. 

[courtbouillon]

Akira Kurosawa knows how to start a memoir. 

Full disclosure, I stole this from a tweet, because it’s amazing. 

[gryphknight]

[catsoy]

Frank Herbert, Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1)

[mikerugnetta]

Without fear, I die but once.

[deborahkerr]

Ingrid Bergman in Stromboli (1950)

[courtbouillon]

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. There are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

Fleur Adcock, Things

[archiesleach]

Cary Grant gets hosed down for a scene in Destination Tokyo, 1943.

[cinemaocd]

*Slams fist on desk* Now THAT’S the kind of content I like to see on my dash!

[courtbouillon]

*hearty fist-shakings of agreement* *low rumbles of approval*

[aintthatakick]

[jhermann]

[courtbouillon]

The safest way to live is first, inherit money, second be born without a taste for liquor, third, have a legitimate job that keeps you busy, fourth, marry a wife who will cooperate in your sexual peculiarities, fifth, join some big church, sixth, don't live too long.

Barbara Vine, A Fatal Inversion

[courtbouillon]

So I just re-blogged that Brief Encounter thing

...only to scroll down and see it like, three more times on my dash in less than a minute. 

Which leads me to two reflections obviously. 1. I follow the right people. And 2. I should be spending more time on tumblr with y’all.

[deborahkerr]

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter (1945)

[courtbouillon]

The signs as iconic Pete Campbell moments

ARIES: "It's shameful! It's a shameful, shameful day!"

TAURUS: NOT GREAT BOB

GEMINI: crashing the car in the hotel lobby

CANCER: "Well, I'm president of the Howdy Doody Circus Army!"

LEO: California Pete hugging Don

VIRGO: "The king ordered it!"

LIBRA: chip 'n' dip

SCORPIO: "Hell's bells, Trudy!"

SAGITTARIUS: tripping down the stairs

CAPRICORN: "I've got ten percent!"

AQUARIUS: "A four letter word that starts with F, have you ever heard such a thing?!"

PISCES: walking into the column

[courtbouillon]

Charles on Fire

Another evening we sprawled about discussing Appearances. And it was the consensus That while uncommon physical good looks Continued to launch one, as before, in life (Among its vaporous eddies and false claims), Still, as one of us said into his beard, "Without your intellectual and spiritual Values, man, you are sunk." No one but squared The shoulders of their own unlovliness. Long-suffering Charles, having cooked and served the meal, Now brought out little tumblers finely etched He filled with amber liquor and then passed. "Say," said the same young man, "in Paris, France, They do it this way"--bounding to his feet And touching a lit match to our host's full glass. A blue flame, gentle, beautiful, came, went Above the surface. In a hush that fell We heard the vessel crack. The contents drained As who should step down from a crystal coach. Steward of spirits, Charles's glistening hand All at once gloved itself in eeriness. The moment passed. He made two quick sweeps and Was flesh again. "It couldn't matter less," He said, but with a shocked, unconscious glance Into the mirror. Finding nothing changed, He filled a fresh glass and sank down among us.

- james merrill