Cumberbitch/ "Be yourself, everyone else is taken." ~ Oscar Wilde/Richard!baby (c) Richard Speight jr
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Сегодня в 2:44
There's a section of my book Life's That Way that almost stands alone, and I often read it at public readings and book signings. Because someone was kind enough to send me a link today, I am able to augment that section in a way that will perhaps be particularly meaningful to those who've read the book. For those who haven't, here's the section, along with the link:
MAY 31, 2004
Crac!
It's the sound a rocking chair makes when one of the rockers breaks off.
It's also the title of a short animated film made in 1980, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1982. Cecily and I stumbled across the fifteen-minute film years ago when it was used as filler on the late, lamented Z Channel in L.A.
Crac! tells the story of a French-Canadian family from pioneer days through the modern industrial era, all through the "eyes" of a rocking chair made by hand by the patriarch of the family.
The father has carved a face in the crest rail, and with smiles or frowns, the chair watches all that goes on around it. Children are born, and they are rocked in their mother's arms in the chair. As they grow, they use it as a plaything, their imaginations metamorphosing the chair into a sleigh, a fort, a locomotive, whatever their little minds can conjure. At night the family sits around the fire, lost in individual reverie, huddled near father as he rocks and smokes his pipe. Seasons pass. Children grow and wed. At a wedding dance, the old ladies rock in the chair and watch the young folks celebrate.
And when the chair is old and rickety, just like the man who made it, finally one of its rockers breaks. Crac! Yet there's life in and for the old chair yet, and though the world around the rocking chair transforms with the passing years into something not so pretty or bucolic or likely to render tender memories, eventually the life that the chair has seen, the glories and warmth and security of family and love and community find their revival, and the resonance of the brief story lingers long, long afterward.
Something about this little movie touched me and Cecily deeply. The joys of family love and tradition that she longed so for in her life were beautifully presented in Crac! The music, French-Canadian folk-type music, was redolent of a quieter, more peaceful, and communal time. The detail of the animation, the quirks in the chair's little face, the subtle shifts of mood, made this one of the most treasured experiences Cec and I had together. We saw it many times on the grainy videotape I'd made of it, accidentally captured at the tail end of some movie in the mid-Eighties. Eventually, I found it on DVD and we saw it again, this time with new appreciation for the artistry and color. I am certain that in all the many times we saw this little film, there was not one time that Cec didn't turn to me afterwards and slowly dissolve into tears. Everything she ever wanted in her life was somehow literally or figuratively captured in this little strip of animation. The continuum of love and family, the resonance of happy times that she always believed lingered inside inanimate objects, the traditions of shared affectionate life that she so hoped to create in her own world, all of it was there. She cried with happiness and longing and with sadness, too, every single time she saw it.
We discovered this little film a few months before we got married. When we came home from our wedding, sitting in the middle of our living room, was a richly dark cherrywood rocking chair with spindle stiles and a crest rail broad enough to carve a face in. In our nineteen years together, Cecily gave me many, many gifts that took my breath away and left me in tears. I think in all our nearly two decades, this rocking chair was the only time I ever really returned the favor. She knew instantly what it was, what it represented. I don't think I ever saw her cry harder for joy.
Tonight, as I lay with Maddie listening to her drift snufflingly off to sleep, I began thinking of videos that Maddie might enjoy, now that she's near to outgrowing some of her favorites. I remembered the DVD with Crac! on it. And I wondered how long it would be before Maddie could appreciate that film in something like the way her mother had. And, of course, then I began thinking about the film itself and its depiction of a young husband and wife, starting their lives together, having their family and building their home, and growing old together with such love and tenderness for one another and such interdependence, such shared support as their hair grew white and their paces slowed. And I thought of how much Cec wanted that, and how much I wanted it with her, and how difficult it is to imagine growing old without her, how unutterably sad it is to walk that road alone, without the one who made my soul sing.
Crac!
It's the sound a heart makes.
10:29 p.m.
No bye-bye.
Jim
Поделиться
Сегодня в 2:44
There's a section of my book Life's That Way that almost stands alone, and I often read it at public readings and book signings. Because someone was kind enough to send me a link today, I am able to augment that section in a way that will perhaps be particularly meaningful to those who've read the book. For those who haven't, here's the section, along with the link:
MAY 31, 2004
Crac!
It's the sound a rocking chair makes when one of the rockers breaks off.
It's also the title of a short animated film made in 1980, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1982. Cecily and I stumbled across the fifteen-minute film years ago when it was used as filler on the late, lamented Z Channel in L.A.
Crac! tells the story of a French-Canadian family from pioneer days through the modern industrial era, all through the "eyes" of a rocking chair made by hand by the patriarch of the family.
The father has carved a face in the crest rail, and with smiles or frowns, the chair watches all that goes on around it. Children are born, and they are rocked in their mother's arms in the chair. As they grow, they use it as a plaything, their imaginations metamorphosing the chair into a sleigh, a fort, a locomotive, whatever their little minds can conjure. At night the family sits around the fire, lost in individual reverie, huddled near father as he rocks and smokes his pipe. Seasons pass. Children grow and wed. At a wedding dance, the old ladies rock in the chair and watch the young folks celebrate.
And when the chair is old and rickety, just like the man who made it, finally one of its rockers breaks. Crac! Yet there's life in and for the old chair yet, and though the world around the rocking chair transforms with the passing years into something not so pretty or bucolic or likely to render tender memories, eventually the life that the chair has seen, the glories and warmth and security of family and love and community find their revival, and the resonance of the brief story lingers long, long afterward.
Something about this little movie touched me and Cecily deeply. The joys of family love and tradition that she longed so for in her life were beautifully presented in Crac! The music, French-Canadian folk-type music, was redolent of a quieter, more peaceful, and communal time. The detail of the animation, the quirks in the chair's little face, the subtle shifts of mood, made this one of the most treasured experiences Cec and I had together. We saw it many times on the grainy videotape I'd made of it, accidentally captured at the tail end of some movie in the mid-Eighties. Eventually, I found it on DVD and we saw it again, this time with new appreciation for the artistry and color. I am certain that in all the many times we saw this little film, there was not one time that Cec didn't turn to me afterwards and slowly dissolve into tears. Everything she ever wanted in her life was somehow literally or figuratively captured in this little strip of animation. The continuum of love and family, the resonance of happy times that she always believed lingered inside inanimate objects, the traditions of shared affectionate life that she so hoped to create in her own world, all of it was there. She cried with happiness and longing and with sadness, too, every single time she saw it.
We discovered this little film a few months before we got married. When we came home from our wedding, sitting in the middle of our living room, was a richly dark cherrywood rocking chair with spindle stiles and a crest rail broad enough to carve a face in. In our nineteen years together, Cecily gave me many, many gifts that took my breath away and left me in tears. I think in all our nearly two decades, this rocking chair was the only time I ever really returned the favor. She knew instantly what it was, what it represented. I don't think I ever saw her cry harder for joy.
Tonight, as I lay with Maddie listening to her drift snufflingly off to sleep, I began thinking of videos that Maddie might enjoy, now that she's near to outgrowing some of her favorites. I remembered the DVD with Crac! on it. And I wondered how long it would be before Maddie could appreciate that film in something like the way her mother had. And, of course, then I began thinking about the film itself and its depiction of a young husband and wife, starting their lives together, having their family and building their home, and growing old together with such love and tenderness for one another and such interdependence, such shared support as their hair grew white and their paces slowed. And I thought of how much Cec wanted that, and how much I wanted it with her, and how difficult it is to imagine growing old without her, how unutterably sad it is to walk that road alone, without the one who made my soul sing.
Crac!
It's the sound a heart makes.
10:29 p.m.
No bye-bye.
Jim
@темы: Facebook доставляет, Jim Beaver
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27.04.2010 в 13:13со дня на день должны доставить
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27.04.2010 в 13:29-
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27.04.2010 в 14:02теперь жду... воооот)
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27.04.2010 в 14:04-
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27.04.2010 в 14:09-
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27.04.2010 в 14:17-
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27.04.2010 в 17:25-
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27.04.2010 в 17:31напомните мне в феврале! И будут вам книжки
а их не могут с продажи снять? а то щаз как пообещаю, а их потом каааак не будет!
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27.04.2010 в 19:38-
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28.04.2010 в 01:07деньги, думаю, можно будет просто на карточку бросить, да?
только сразу скажи, тебе какую - твердый переплет, мягкий (там цена разная)?
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28.04.2010 в 09:30-
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28.04.2010 в 13:24-
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28.04.2010 в 13:2616 евро? тогда закаж мне плиз... а бабки потом на карту тебе скину. Ток скажи как это делаеццо
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28.04.2010 в 13:46эээээ.... где? о_О
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28.04.2010 в 14:02www.diary.ru/~eternity-in-my-heart/p106685438.h...