Appalachian American Ennui: August 2024

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Phantom Thread - This film will be remembered as a classic over and above the classics

Masterfully and entirely novelly Written and directed by P.T. Anderson, this film is absolutely great in every respect. Run the credits. It all bends sharply toward cinematic perfection. DD Lewis, and Vicky Kreips are hynotic. Eleven out of ten, so where's it been for the last seven years? I never understand this temporal gap between the release of great art to the public and my cognition of its exitence. I have a very strong hunch that it has something to do with the marketplace. No problem.

Sunday, August 18, 2024

My Pineal Gland, Knuckled Violence, Paternal Pride Arising Eternal, and Robert Frost. (September 17, 2022 through August 17, 2024)

After slapping the shit out of the side of my face, and after I pleaded for another, he delivered immediately, but not in keeping with my request. In lieu thereof, he nailed me right between the goddamn eyes with a left hook, causing a flash-bang in my face, shocked and surprised bones and underlying tissues, and watering eyes. Even greater than the pain was pride's powerful rising, never to recede again, I suspect. In the days that followed, I recognized the love that made my obits and nasal cavities ache with just the right dollop of pain. And in those same days, the violence seemed to coalesce into the area between by two brows, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if all those calcified, rust-henged obstructive, chakrac seals were broken open when his beautiful fist came 'round and tagged me right in my fucking face. But, what's truly sacred is what it broke loose in my beloved aggressor. Exactly 23 months in the making. And let us not forget how his dear mother would have literally expanded outward with pure and perfect maternal pride, and ex-spousal delight, as well. But she wasn't, and in the words of Robert Frost, "that has made all the difference."

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Why Don't Appalachian Women Dance?

I confine this to real Appalachian women who have not enjoyed the swelling experience of attending a college in an urban area because of generational poverty, unintended pregnancies, religious indoctrination, backwardness and ignorance. In narrowing the question, it seems I've answered it.

Monday, August 12, 2024

A Prisoner's Path to Nature (The In-breath is the trailhead)

Even assuming the human "inmate," which is a euphemism for prisoner, is in "administrative segregation," which is a euphemism for solitary confinement, she is not segregated from nature. In fact, one of the most intricate manifestations of nature, a universe unto its self, is fully present at all times -- the human body that shares the stars. It is observable through all of the senses that it has developed -- a self observing manifestation of the whole of itself. The inmate thus observes, through the body itself the diaphram as it moves, the heart as it beats, the central and peripheral nervous system as it fires, the body's capacity to process food and water, its wonderful ability to shed, to regenerate, to resist gravity itself with muscles and bones, and to stand wiithin constant protection by its brilliant sheathing. But most fascinating of all is the singularity with which these functions operate; When the inmate recognizes that, the observatory is constructed within her otherwise closed quarter. She cannot be denied the temporal proximity of this marvelous generation of life so long as it continues to breathe from the surrounding air, which is the life-enabling hallmark of a singular, yet fractal life. This is available through Thich Nhat Hanh's universal in-breath, maybe late at night, while the others rest within their bodies unaware.