Today marks the 84th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland that is usually considered the beginning of WWII. I went back to look at a poem by W.H. Auden associated with that date, namely “September 1, 1939.” The first stanza reads as follows:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
The poem is interesting for several reasons, one being its revival following 9/11. As Ian Sansom notes, ” . . . in the aftermath of 9/11, many American newspapers reprinted Auden’s poem in its entirety: it was widely circulated and discussed online and in print. It seemed prophetic, wise and relevant, almost too good to be true. This is partly because it mentions September and New York, circulating fears, and the unmentionable odour of death, all in its first stanza. It was the right poem, in the right place, for a wrong time.”
The other reason why the poem is interesting is that Auden later disowned it, stating that “The whole poem, I realized, was infected with an incurable dishonesty – and must be scrapped.” He refused to have it included in anthologies of his poetry, but readers have persisted in reviving the poem again and again. Sansom goes on to describe “September 1, 1939” as “the world’s greatest zombie poem. It won’t die – and never will – because people want it to be true. . . . My explanation for the long life and afterlife of “September 1, 1939” is that it’s one of those poems that seems to provide simple answers to difficult questions, which is not necessarily a good thing. In studying it I’ve come to the conclusion that poetry can indeed uplift and sublimate and help us to make things good, but that it can also encourage us in false and sentimental ideas and emotions. Poetry can guide us, and it can lead us astray.”
As I look back on the most recent “low dishonest decade,” I can see why Auden’s “zombie poem” is still very much with us.
79 people arrested for arson seems like a very large number of people. It certainly leads one to believe that this was an organized group of individuals. Typically acts of arson are either committed by a single individual who is just a garden variety derranged firebug, or an individual or a few people who are criminal insurance fraudsters. In this case I find it difficult to believe that there could be so many people who were each acting on their own.
There’s been all sorts of speculation about the causes of all the other notable wild fires over the past months. With regards to the Maui fires, I hear that Hawaiian Electric is saying that the power lines were deengergized at the time in the area that the wildfire started. Of course that doesn’t rule out dry lightning being the cause, but it’s certainly raises questions.
There are people around the world that pose a grave danger because of they are determined to promote the climate hoax not merely by their false words, but by direct and murderous actions.
Frank Sinatra, one of the all-time greats. And look at all the great arrangers and conductors he worked with: Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, Gordon Jenkins, Billy May, and of course the incomparable Quincy Jones.
Try to Remember
Try to Remember (from “The Fantasticks”) a kind of September.
I should add that Don Costa was the arranger and conductor for an up tempo version of Billy Joel’s “Just the Way Your Are” that Sinatra did on his 1980 album Trilogy.
Music by Kurt Weill, words by Maxwell Anderson. The song was from “Knickerbocker Holiday,” a satire on the FDR administration.
_______
Lyndon Johnson lifted the last line of Auden’s poem without attribution, and it was used in the famous “Daisy” ad. He did change it a little, though. “We must love one another or die,” became “We must either love each other, or we must die.”
Auden had already renounced the poem and the line. Whether we love each other or not, we will and must die someday. I wonder if his dislike for the poem also had something to do with the reproaches he faced for spending the war years in the US while Britain was fighting for its life.
A little Friday comic relief: Mayor Pete has a new nickname, courtesy of the Gaffemeister-in-Chief: “Secretary Booty Juice”:
Interesting phenomenon where, I assume, most of us here are of a certain “mature” age. The phenomenon is that we seem to revere many of the music and films from our parents and even earlier generations.
Seems like the Millenials and GenZ are not only ignorant, but not even willing to look or listen to films and music from previous generations. I cite my daughters as a example, even though I tried very hard to expand their knowledge when they were growing up. And I think they are typical. The only movies from way back they like are Wizard of Oz and Some Like it Hot. I had to force them to sit down and watch SLiH. But trying to get them to watch Casablanca, or a Hitchock film was futile; never mind anything from the 60s or 70s. Just another example of the degrading of the culture in my view.
Sixteen days after the Nazi’s invaded Poland (from the west), the Russians invaded Eastern Poland. Later on the Russians also invaded Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
All of this was the result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939.
These acts of aggression by the Russians are, of course, rarely mentioned in discussing WWII; the “good” war.
After all, FDR got along just fine with “Uncle Joe.”
Also rarely mentioned is that the Russian NKVD (their secret police) and the German Gestapo held about 7 conferences (from Sept. 1939 to March 1940) to coordinate their efforts re: Polish citizens and POWs.
Lastly, Russia and Germany were allies from Sept 1939 until June 1941 where Russia was supplying Hitler with grain, oil and other raw materials.
WWII was hardly a “good” war, with definitive good vs evil sides, but circumstances dictated that the “good” side – that would be the USA, UK, etc – would benefit militarily from siding with Stalin’s Russia, notwithstanding that up to June 1941 (if not much later) , when Germany attacked Russia, Stalin was the worst mass murderer in world history.
And Russia was a party to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders.
Talk about the lid calling the kettle black.
Even Hitler’s armies were unable to kill as many Russians as did Stalin.
Latest sunset from 8/26. These are unlisted and un-monetized. The wakes in the water at the end are Coho heading upriver to spawn.
Physics Guy: Agree completely. I’d always enjoyed jazz, even when I was listening to 70s era rock as a teenager, so as a result one of my favorite bands has always been Steely Dan. Later on I “discovered” Sinatra, Count Basie, Tony Bennet, Artie Shaw, et al. To think that a guy like Sinatra could gather around him Hollywood’s best studio musicians in front of Don Costa, put a piece of music in front of them, and they play it flawlessly without ever having seen the chart before. Amazing.
I moved to Idaho from the L.A. area 4 years ago, and thanks to technology I’m still able to enjoy a wonderful show on KKJZ 88.1 every Sunday morning: Sharell and Sinatra.
physicsguy–
Good to see you on this thread– I take it your power has been restored and that Florida is returning to normal?
Apropos of your comment that “we seem to revere many of the music and films from our parents and even earlier generations,” I agree. I think the early Boomers (kids born between 1946 and 1954 or thereabouts) were the last generation to receive what used to be called a classical education– i.e., schooling in the arts and literature of the traditional Western canon. As for the music and films of the 1950s, it never occurred to me to complain about my parents’ tastes. It may be that the fact that there were only three TV networks back then meant that families spent more time watching TV together rather than splitting up to watch specialized cable channels on different sets. And of course there was no Internet, cell phones, or social media– the different generations in a family had to talk to one another face to face.
The culture has become degraded because its continuity has been lost.
I think it may be that we boomers prefer older music and older films is because these were of higher quality — in music, better music; and in film, better plot lines and better acting.
physicsguy & PA Cat,
I recall showing Hitchcock’s Psycho for a weekly movie event once. We had been watching action and suspense films, but would you believe that they were completely bored by the first 20 minutes or so. It is true that Hitchcock often sets a very deliberate pace and an almost reflective tone.
Since I’ve been going to many live music events recently, I’ve been impressed with the popularity of classic pop songs among the younger crowd. Many before they were born. Also interesting is that they often know the lyrics perfectly. I suspect that may be the result of them growing up with streaming music where the lyrics can be displayed while listening.
physicsguy –
One of my grand-nephews, 14 years old, recently became interested in westerns. I lent him my DVD (egads! so old school) of The Magnificent Seven (1960). He liked it. The next time he was over at our house I suggested we watch Seven Samurai. I started the movie and he exclaimed, “I can’t watch this”. Why, I asked, because of the subtitles? No, he replied, because “it’s in black and white, I don’t watch black and white.”
I found the same is true for my grand-nieces … they don’t do black and white.
What a shame, to miss out on so many great movies and wonderful photography.
Johnny Cash died in September 2003, and “September When it Comes” is a duet between Roseanne Cash and her father. It gives me chills no matter how many times I’ve heard it.
PA+Cat, the lamps were never turned back on when they went off at the start of WWI. I think they are still out.
I caught this interesting Jonathan Turley piece via Zerohedge about a Washington Post columnist named Philip Bump who has been revealed to have been lying in stories multiple times around various issues like all the evidence around the Biden scandles and such. He was on some podcast hosted by the owner of the well known NYC comedy club “The Comedy Cellar” (which in and of itself is a bit odd… but whatever). The comedy club owner is very much a liberal ally of Bump. But I guess the topic of conversation turned to these issues and Bump had a complete meltdown, yelling about how “You Don’t Listen To The Press… I’m Telling You!” and finally walking out in a huff.
Physicsguy,
Just this week I was discussing how the movies and shows have changed. Compare older cop shows with newer ones. I think on average, the older cop shows had a lot more talking and less action , where as the newer shows have more action.
On the culture issue and ties to the past.
For multiple generations, many English speaking protestants and evangelicals shared a common Bible translation, the King James, that provided a common and lingering effect on the language, with it’s older English. Now that is largely falling away, although there are hold outs. I grew up reading the King James and hearing it in church, as generations of my family had in the past. Somewhere along the line, I switched over to the New International Version, and later, The Christian Standard Bible ( R) by Holman, although I have the KJV, and other translations, around.
Again, generations of use and now it is fading. ( Although I consider the KJV to have reached near its end of true usefulness since the language has changed. Time to move on. )
physicsguy The phenomenon is that we seem to revere many of the music and films from our parents and even earlier generations.
We may have not been reared with the music of our parents’ generations, but we certainly saw on TV many of the films of their generation. In addition, many films from that era hit movie theaters, such as Casablanca or Gone With the Wind. A lot of college film societies also showed the old films.
I was born and raised in NE, but my mother was an Okie (went north during WW2 to replace teaching assistants who had been drafted). Some years after I moved to Texas, I discovered Western Swing, and Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing. My mother was pleasantly surprised on Christmas when I brought this up. She said told me she had danced to Bob Wills records in her teen years.
Frank may not have had the vocal power of Ella or Sarah, but he could definitely interpret a song with the best of them.
Why did Auden dislike his own poem?
I consider the KJV to have reached near its end of true usefulness since the language has changed. Time to move on.
You move on. I’m sticking with KJV. And I’m Catholic.
Gringo: Some would argue that Spade Cooley was the “king of western swing,” although I think his contribution is more to what is referred to as “the Bakersfield sound.”
The ESV is a translation drawing heavily on the KJV but minus some of the words which have changed meaning in the time between the translations. Familiar passages will still be very familiar.
Scholars I read have said that a way for the non-expert reader to determine if the translation is reasonably literal is to look at Psalm 1. If if begins, “Blessed is the man,” the translation has not made politically correct decisions. If the Hebrew or Greek said “man,” so does the ESV. If the translation says, “Blessed is the one” or “Blessed are they,” move on to a more careful translation.
SHIREHOME… I’d be interested to hear you say more re your 1:56pm comment about the lamps being out since WWI.
I share that opinion (I think) but I wonder how you see it more fully.
It’s an open thread so I am not worried too greatly about hijacking anything:-)
The Capitol physician has reportedly cleared Mitch McConnell, labeling his obvious freezing and what looks like his second TIA , as just momentary “lightheadedness.”
I call bullshit on this.
McConnell is obviously not able to do his job and neither, by the way, is Feinstein, Biden, or Fetterman.
its an intriguing questions about translation, in some passages, they do use ‘man’ in other like james and revelation, they one the one, of course it often hinges on the intermediate language, in this case, greek, ‘for those who have understanding’
so i’ve seen makarios, as the cognate for blessed,
irish have you fixed, your website,
Years ago I had moved on to the New International translation. My pastor then, in a very conservative congregation, while preaching, would say something to the effect from his KJV– this word would have been better translated as *****. Talking to him later I would tell him the word in question was translated in the NIV as the word he was suggesting.
This went on for several years, and while he still clung to his KJV, he did use the NIV more often. Of course, the NIV has added additions that are more “inclusive”, but you can still find the earlier editions.
I’m using an ESV, and also think it’s a good translation– though I still have a parallel app with the NLT, KJV, NIV and several others. Since all translations are sometimes an approximation of the author’s intent, it’s good to get many views.
Steph, that’s exactly what my daughters say….”no black and white movies!” I can’t understand it. Some of the great film noir would be ruined (looking at you Ted Turner!) if not in B&W.
PA+Cat, out of power for 12+ hours…somehow even though we were the largest group out, JEA forgot about us. All good now; couple of tree branches down but that’s it.
IrishOtter49 asks, “Why did Auden dislike his own poem?”
This commentary on the poem contains a capsule summary of Auden’s reasons for disowning his own work: ” . . . sometime after having written it, Auden himself began to develop an aversion to the poem. One reason for this was his growing distrust of what he considered to be high-flown, histrionic rhetoric, such as he found in Yeats’s ‘Easter 1916’. It was a mode of expression likely, Auden believed, to deflect a poet from dealing only with the truth of things. Another reason may have been that, as with that other disowned poem, ‘Spain’, he no longer held the strong left-wing political beliefs he had once espoused. Auden felt that in writing ‘September 1 1939’ he had deviated from the truth into overblown and insupportable flamboyance and he felt ashamed of it, calling it the most dishonest poem he had ever written. He may also have wished to banish it from his oeuvre because, in focusing objectively on the political weaknesses of the 1930s, he had unintentionally exposed subjective vulnerabilities within himself that he would rather have kept hidden.”
Auden was 32 when he wrote “September 1, 1939,” and died 34 years later in 1973. In addition to outgrowing the left-wing politics he espoused in the three plays he co-wrote with Christopher Isherwood from 1935 to 1938, he returned to the Anglicanism he had abandoned at the age of 15 when he joined the (American) Episcopal Church in 1940. It’s possible that Auden’s attitude toward his poem reflected conflicted feelings about his homosexuality. He and Isherwood were lovers until Isherwood moved to California in April 1939. About the time that Auden wrote “September 1, 1939,” he had become involved with Chester Kallmann, who ended their sexual relationship in 1941 when Auden insisted on mutual fidelity. All his life, Auden idealized marriage and longed for a marital-type relationship with someone he loved, which he never found. Whether such a relationship is possible for two gay men in our present cultural cesspool, I have no idea.
miguel cervantes:
Not yet. It’s on my list. Will probably do a new site instead of fixing the old one. Much new content to add. I’ll let you know when and if this happens. Thanks for asking — thanks for your interest.
PA Cat:
I just a moment ago published a post trying to answer that same question. I hadn’t yet seen your 5:03 comment when I published it. Take a look.
Neo–
I just did take a look, and I answered you there. Apologies for the online version of telephone tag.
IrishOtter49: IIRC, because he thought some of the lines were untrue and contrived. (…and apologies for adding to the telephone tag)
Singers:
Jane Monheit (born 1977 on Long Island) is a younger interpreter of the Great American Songbook. She listened to Ella growing up. Live at Iridium in NYC in 2011:
A late Boomer, I had Depression parents and grew up listening with them to music programs on the breakfast table radio, so was introduced to this material early in life. I think–I hope–there are young people in the post-smartphone generation who can still appreciate it.
I like old movies because of Gene Tierney. And in matters biblical I’m with IrishOtter, sometimes, for their pleasing sonorities, reading passages of TKJ aloud. I bet admirers Melville, Hemingway and Cormac MCarthy did too.
The Fifties had a reputation for being repressive and conformist, but they were also a time of American optimism and swagger. There was sophistication. People still dressed up for dinner and went to the theatre. Audrey Hepburn and (people wrongly thought) JFK. There was also a cool rebelliousness. Elvis, James Dean, Kerouac. Sinatra was thought of as old people music in the Sixties, but Boomers and Xers came around to him. Boomers mellowed as they grew older. Xers went through a real Rat Pack vogue in the Nineties.
If young people now aren’t rediscovering their parents or grandparents music, it may be because they never had to. Boomer music never really went away, so there was no special cachet in rediscovering it.
_________
I don’t think Auden was taking on or taking down Yeats. Yeats had misgivings about his great political poem and the wars that the Easter Rising touched off. Auden had misgivings about his political/topical poem. When poets touch on politics, they are often ambivalent, and we admire them more when they are. Auden and Yeats may not have been that different in their attitude towards political or newspaper poetry. I suspect Auden had more serious regrets about his earlier poem “Spain” and its line about “the necessary murder” than about “September 1, 1939.”
RE: UFOs and today’s general “uncertainty.”
I just ran across this interesting discussion with Eric Weinstein about his reaction to the UFO whistleblower, and whether or not he thinks his testimony could be a psyop.*
In the course of this discussion, though, Weinstein brings up the fact that we are all now groping around in a fog of uncertainty about everything, because all of our major institutions and our “experts” have discredited themselves, so much so that it is impossible to determine the truth of not only what the UFO whistleblower says, but of anything else as well, unless we are actually present to witness something for ourselves.
As I have commented before, so much disinformation—a firehose of supposed information and speculation–about the UFO phenomenon had been spread that what is actually happening within the government with regard to the UFO issue is impossible to find out; impossible to find the truth, the “needle” hidden under a “haystack of bullshit.”
Are there crash retrieval programs and aliens or not, or is all the hoopla a way of diverting attention from some other program, a way to misdirect our enemies to spend their money on research which will not do them any good, could there actually be a rogue group of scientists, government employees, and contractors—a government within the government–which has mastered vastly superior Alien technology and is concealing it and using it for their own ends and benefit, are there Aliens here on Earth, has our government even made agreements with them—where is the needle concealed within a mountain of misinformation and bullshit?
Weinstein gave this example.
You construct a fake UFO in a warehouse, and you run people through that warehouse and past that fake UFO–telling them not to look to the left or to the right or they will be shot–and, of course, they will look, and someone will eventually talk about the UFO in the warehouse.
To illustrate our contemporary dilemma Weinstein asked what would happen today if the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?
Everyone would have questions.
Did the attack actually happen, or was it just CGI? Could this have been a false flag operation? Was the news vastly exaggerated? Could we trust that the Administration was reporting what actually happened? Would the general public believe that such an attack by Japan had actually happened? Would some commentators take the position that we shouldn’t retaliate because we had somehow merited such an attack, due to something our country might possibly have done? Was it just a very unfortunate “misunderstanding”?
Would there be immediate retaliation, or would it take weeks of debate to come to such a Declaration of War?
Would enough members of Congress even be sufficiently convinced to vote for a Declaration of War?
Just another open-thread comment that has nothing to do with Sinatra.
Oliver Anthony, now famous for “Rich Men North of Richmond,” recently did a long interview with Joe Rogan. The whole thing’s on Spotify, but I haven’t listened to it yet.
On Twitter (https://tinyurl.com/22nnj4vu), there’s an interview clip about Anthony’s recent dedication to Christianity and the Bible, especially those books that are most like songs. He suggests that his own music is far more religious than political, and that he has no faith in politicians of any sort. No surprise, I guess, but he’s very explicit and matter-of-fact about his new-found faith. Put together with his music, it’s hard not to be affected, even though I’m not religious. Worth a look, I think.
RE: China and Electric Vehicles
My go to Youtube Western commentators about China–laowhy76 and Serpentza–have been posting a lot of revelatory information about and images of the China they have dubbed the land of “shortcuts and facades.”
Below is a link to a recent report on China’s much publicized push for Electric Vehicles, and how it has apparently turned out to have been a very costly failure.*
yahoo [dot] com keeps running news stories about how-
“The 14th Amendment can be used to stop Trump from being President”.
…No, it can’t.
The 14th amendment says, + I’m paraphrasing, that: if someone was found guilty of [treason or sedition], then the law prevents them from being elected as President.
For that to work: 1] he’d have to be found [guilty] of treason or sedition, AND THEN 2] then that law comes into effect.
It sounds like yahoo [dot] com wants to believe that Trump has been found guilty of these crimes, when he has not.
It sounds like yahoo [R] is doing unfair reporting.
As long as we’re doing poetry, from Yeats’ Second Coming:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Ripped from today’s headlines, no?
Such a wonderful album. Sinatra and Gordon Jenkins at their peak. I loved this album when it came out and I was eighteen, and now I’m “the man in the looking glass”!
well we saw with 9/11 didn’t we, although this had some first appearances mostly in europe, although it didn’t really flourish until after the 9-11 commission report,
which left a whole bushel of information,
Sinatra had an album, can’t recall when, “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers”. I think that was the title.
For some reason, the title alone built a world. Urban, small, up-scale bars, not entirely on the up and up and the more enticing for that, smokey rooms. Maybe I ought to get hold of it and see if the songs fit my picture.
While I liked Sinatra’s voice, never cared much for any of the songs he recorded. Then, later on, others covered them and I liked them better.
Go figure.
Before our wedding, my wife and I practiced some ballroom dancing. We danced to a Django Reinhardt version of “September Song,” and ever since it has been “our song.”
For those interested. “The Conservative Papers”
https://tinyurl.com/594cnas5
Today marks the 84th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland that is usually considered the beginning of WWII. I went back to look at a poem by W.H. Auden associated with that date, namely “September 1, 1939.” The first stanza reads as follows:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
The poem is interesting for several reasons, one being its revival following 9/11. As Ian Sansom notes, ” . . . in the aftermath of 9/11, many American newspapers reprinted Auden’s poem in its entirety: it was widely circulated and discussed online and in print. It seemed prophetic, wise and relevant, almost too good to be true. This is partly because it mentions September and New York, circulating fears, and the unmentionable odour of death, all in its first stanza. It was the right poem, in the right place, for a wrong time.”
The other reason why the poem is interesting is that Auden later disowned it, stating that “The whole poem, I realized, was infected with an incurable dishonesty – and must be scrapped.” He refused to have it included in anthologies of his poetry, but readers have persisted in reviving the poem again and again. Sansom goes on to describe “September 1, 1939” as “the world’s greatest zombie poem. It won’t die – and never will – because people want it to be true. . . . My explanation for the long life and afterlife of “September 1, 1939” is that it’s one of those poems that seems to provide simple answers to difficult questions, which is not necessarily a good thing. In studying it I’ve come to the conclusion that poetry can indeed uplift and sublimate and help us to make things good, but that it can also encourage us in false and sentimental ideas and emotions. Poetry can guide us, and it can lead us astray.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/31/wh-auden-september-1-1939-poem
Auden’s poem can be read in full here:
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939
As I look back on the most recent “low dishonest decade,” I can see why Auden’s “zombie poem” is still very much with us.
79 people arrested for arson seems like a very large number of people. It certainly leads one to believe that this was an organized group of individuals. Typically acts of arson are either committed by a single individual who is just a garden variety derranged firebug, or an individual or a few people who are criminal insurance fraudsters. In this case I find it difficult to believe that there could be so many people who were each acting on their own.
There’s been all sorts of speculation about the causes of all the other notable wild fires over the past months. With regards to the Maui fires, I hear that Hawaiian Electric is saying that the power lines were deengergized at the time in the area that the wildfire started. Of course that doesn’t rule out dry lightning being the cause, but it’s certainly raises questions.
There are people around the world that pose a grave danger because of they are determined to promote the climate hoax not merely by their false words, but by direct and murderous actions.
Frank Sinatra, one of the all-time greats. And look at all the great arrangers and conductors he worked with: Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, Gordon Jenkins, Billy May, and of course the incomparable Quincy Jones.
Try to Remember
Try to Remember (from “The Fantasticks”) a kind of September.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhQFX3TIsM0
A bit of history. Jet skier bumps into WWI-era ship after drought revealed hidden wrecks.
https://www.businessinsider.com/sunken-world-war-1-wooden-ship-texas-river-jet-ski-2023-8?op=1
I should add that Don Costa was the arranger and conductor for an up tempo version of Billy Joel’s “Just the Way Your Are” that Sinatra did on his 1980 album Trilogy.
Music by Kurt Weill, words by Maxwell Anderson. The song was from “Knickerbocker Holiday,” a satire on the FDR administration.
_______
Lyndon Johnson lifted the last line of Auden’s poem without attribution, and it was used in the famous “Daisy” ad. He did change it a little, though. “We must love one another or die,” became “We must either love each other, or we must die.”
Auden had already renounced the poem and the line. Whether we love each other or not, we will and must die someday. I wonder if his dislike for the poem also had something to do with the reproaches he faced for spending the war years in the US while Britain was fighting for its life.
A little Friday comic relief: Mayor Pete has a new nickname, courtesy of the Gaffemeister-in-Chief: “Secretary Booty Juice”:
https://twitchy.com/samj/2023/09/01/biden-buttigieg-n2386784
Interesting phenomenon where, I assume, most of us here are of a certain “mature” age. The phenomenon is that we seem to revere many of the music and films from our parents and even earlier generations.
Seems like the Millenials and GenZ are not only ignorant, but not even willing to look or listen to films and music from previous generations. I cite my daughters as a example, even though I tried very hard to expand their knowledge when they were growing up. And I think they are typical. The only movies from way back they like are Wizard of Oz and Some Like it Hot. I had to force them to sit down and watch SLiH. But trying to get them to watch Casablanca, or a Hitchock film was futile; never mind anything from the 60s or 70s. Just another example of the degrading of the culture in my view.
Sixteen days after the Nazi’s invaded Poland (from the west), the Russians invaded Eastern Poland. Later on the Russians also invaded Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
All of this was the result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939.
These acts of aggression by the Russians are, of course, rarely mentioned in discussing WWII; the “good” war.
After all, FDR got along just fine with “Uncle Joe.”
Also rarely mentioned is that the Russian NKVD (their secret police) and the German Gestapo held about 7 conferences (from Sept. 1939 to March 1940) to coordinate their efforts re: Polish citizens and POWs.
Lastly, Russia and Germany were allies from Sept 1939 until June 1941 where Russia was supplying Hitler with grain, oil and other raw materials.
WWII was hardly a “good” war, with definitive good vs evil sides, but circumstances dictated that the “good” side – that would be the USA, UK, etc – would benefit militarily from siding with Stalin’s Russia, notwithstanding that up to June 1941 (if not much later) , when Germany attacked Russia, Stalin was the worst mass murderer in world history.
And Russia was a party to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders.
Talk about the lid calling the kettle black.
Even Hitler’s armies were unable to kill as many Russians as did Stalin.
Latest sunset from 8/26. These are unlisted and un-monetized. The wakes in the water at the end are Coho heading upriver to spawn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRwEx__VFg&list=PL6K-IunENZjEkBT2hCsKRXGcKNLKn6M_m&index=1
Physics Guy: Agree completely. I’d always enjoyed jazz, even when I was listening to 70s era rock as a teenager, so as a result one of my favorite bands has always been Steely Dan. Later on I “discovered” Sinatra, Count Basie, Tony Bennet, Artie Shaw, et al. To think that a guy like Sinatra could gather around him Hollywood’s best studio musicians in front of Don Costa, put a piece of music in front of them, and they play it flawlessly without ever having seen the chart before. Amazing.
I moved to Idaho from the L.A. area 4 years ago, and thanks to technology I’m still able to enjoy a wonderful show on KKJZ 88.1 every Sunday morning: Sharell and Sinatra.
physicsguy–
Good to see you on this thread– I take it your power has been restored and that Florida is returning to normal?
Apropos of your comment that “we seem to revere many of the music and films from our parents and even earlier generations,” I agree. I think the early Boomers (kids born between 1946 and 1954 or thereabouts) were the last generation to receive what used to be called a classical education– i.e., schooling in the arts and literature of the traditional Western canon. As for the music and films of the 1950s, it never occurred to me to complain about my parents’ tastes. It may be that the fact that there were only three TV networks back then meant that families spent more time watching TV together rather than splitting up to watch specialized cable channels on different sets. And of course there was no Internet, cell phones, or social media– the different generations in a family had to talk to one another face to face.
The culture has become degraded because its continuity has been lost.
I think it may be that we boomers prefer older music and older films is because these were of higher quality — in music, better music; and in film, better plot lines and better acting.
physicsguy & PA Cat,
I recall showing Hitchcock’s Psycho for a weekly movie event once. We had been watching action and suspense films, but would you believe that they were completely bored by the first 20 minutes or so. It is true that Hitchcock often sets a very deliberate pace and an almost reflective tone.
Since I’ve been going to many live music events recently, I’ve been impressed with the popularity of classic pop songs among the younger crowd. Many before they were born. Also interesting is that they often know the lyrics perfectly. I suspect that may be the result of them growing up with streaming music where the lyrics can be displayed while listening.
physicsguy –
One of my grand-nephews, 14 years old, recently became interested in westerns. I lent him my DVD (egads! so old school) of The Magnificent Seven (1960). He liked it. The next time he was over at our house I suggested we watch Seven Samurai. I started the movie and he exclaimed, “I can’t watch this”. Why, I asked, because of the subtitles? No, he replied, because “it’s in black and white, I don’t watch black and white.”
I found the same is true for my grand-nieces … they don’t do black and white.
What a shame, to miss out on so many great movies and wonderful photography.
Johnny Cash died in September 2003, and “September When it Comes” is a duet between Roseanne Cash and her father. It gives me chills no matter how many times I’ve heard it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2WilM6ljUg
PA+Cat, the lamps were never turned back on when they went off at the start of WWI. I think they are still out.
I caught this interesting Jonathan Turley piece via Zerohedge about a Washington Post columnist named Philip Bump who has been revealed to have been lying in stories multiple times around various issues like all the evidence around the Biden scandles and such. He was on some podcast hosted by the owner of the well known NYC comedy club “The Comedy Cellar” (which in and of itself is a bit odd… but whatever). The comedy club owner is very much a liberal ally of Bump. But I guess the topic of conversation turned to these issues and Bump had a complete meltdown, yelling about how “You Don’t Listen To The Press… I’m Telling You!” and finally walking out in a huff.
Physicsguy,
Just this week I was discussing how the movies and shows have changed. Compare older cop shows with newer ones. I think on average, the older cop shows had a lot more talking and less action , where as the newer shows have more action.
On the culture issue and ties to the past.
For multiple generations, many English speaking protestants and evangelicals shared a common Bible translation, the King James, that provided a common and lingering effect on the language, with it’s older English. Now that is largely falling away, although there are hold outs. I grew up reading the King James and hearing it in church, as generations of my family had in the past. Somewhere along the line, I switched over to the New International Version, and later, The Christian Standard Bible ( R) by Holman, although I have the KJV, and other translations, around.
Again, generations of use and now it is fading. ( Although I consider the KJV to have reached near its end of true usefulness since the language has changed. Time to move on. )
physicsguy
The phenomenon is that we seem to revere many of the music and films from our parents and even earlier generations.
We may have not been reared with the music of our parents’ generations, but we certainly saw on TV many of the films of their generation. In addition, many films from that era hit movie theaters, such as Casablanca or Gone With the Wind. A lot of college film societies also showed the old films.
I was born and raised in NE, but my mother was an Okie (went north during WW2 to replace teaching assistants who had been drafted). Some years after I moved to Texas, I discovered Western Swing, and Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing. My mother was pleasantly surprised on Christmas when I brought this up. She said told me she had danced to Bob Wills records in her teen years.
Frank may not have had the vocal power of Ella or Sarah, but he could definitely interpret a song with the best of them.
Why did Auden dislike his own poem?
I consider the KJV to have reached near its end of true usefulness since the language has changed. Time to move on.
You move on. I’m sticking with KJV. And I’m Catholic.
Gringo: Some would argue that Spade Cooley was the “king of western swing,” although I think his contribution is more to what is referred to as “the Bakersfield sound.”
The ESV is a translation drawing heavily on the KJV but minus some of the words which have changed meaning in the time between the translations. Familiar passages will still be very familiar.
Scholars I read have said that a way for the non-expert reader to determine if the translation is reasonably literal is to look at Psalm 1. If if begins, “Blessed is the man,” the translation has not made politically correct decisions. If the Hebrew or Greek said “man,” so does the ESV. If the translation says, “Blessed is the one” or “Blessed are they,” move on to a more careful translation.
SHIREHOME… I’d be interested to hear you say more re your 1:56pm comment about the lamps being out since WWI.
I share that opinion (I think) but I wonder how you see it more fully.
It’s an open thread so I am not worried too greatly about hijacking anything:-)
The Capitol physician has reportedly cleared Mitch McConnell, labeling his obvious freezing and what looks like his second TIA , as just momentary “lightheadedness.”
I call bullshit on this.
McConnell is obviously not able to do his job and neither, by the way, is Feinstein, Biden, or Fetterman.
its an intriguing questions about translation, in some passages, they do use ‘man’ in other like james and revelation, they one the one, of course it often hinges on the intermediate language, in this case, greek, ‘for those who have understanding’
so i’ve seen makarios, as the cognate for blessed,
irish have you fixed, your website,
Years ago I had moved on to the New International translation. My pastor then, in a very conservative congregation, while preaching, would say something to the effect from his KJV– this word would have been better translated as *****. Talking to him later I would tell him the word in question was translated in the NIV as the word he was suggesting.
This went on for several years, and while he still clung to his KJV, he did use the NIV more often. Of course, the NIV has added additions that are more “inclusive”, but you can still find the earlier editions.
I’m using an ESV, and also think it’s a good translation– though I still have a parallel app with the NLT, KJV, NIV and several others. Since all translations are sometimes an approximation of the author’s intent, it’s good to get many views.
Steph, that’s exactly what my daughters say….”no black and white movies!” I can’t understand it. Some of the great film noir would be ruined (looking at you Ted Turner!) if not in B&W.
PA+Cat, out of power for 12+ hours…somehow even though we were the largest group out, JEA forgot about us. All good now; couple of tree branches down but that’s it.
IrishOtter49 asks, “Why did Auden dislike his own poem?”
This commentary on the poem contains a capsule summary of Auden’s reasons for disowning his own work: ” . . . sometime after having written it, Auden himself began to develop an aversion to the poem. One reason for this was his growing distrust of what he considered to be high-flown, histrionic rhetoric, such as he found in Yeats’s ‘Easter 1916’. It was a mode of expression likely, Auden believed, to deflect a poet from dealing only with the truth of things. Another reason may have been that, as with that other disowned poem, ‘Spain’, he no longer held the strong left-wing political beliefs he had once espoused. Auden felt that in writing ‘September 1 1939’ he had deviated from the truth into overblown and insupportable flamboyance and he felt ashamed of it, calling it the most dishonest poem he had ever written. He may also have wished to banish it from his oeuvre because, in focusing objectively on the political weaknesses of the 1930s, he had unintentionally exposed subjective vulnerabilities within himself that he would rather have kept hidden.”
https://thelondonmagazine.org/article/w-h-auden-and-september-1-1939/
Auden was 32 when he wrote “September 1, 1939,” and died 34 years later in 1973. In addition to outgrowing the left-wing politics he espoused in the three plays he co-wrote with Christopher Isherwood from 1935 to 1938, he returned to the Anglicanism he had abandoned at the age of 15 when he joined the (American) Episcopal Church in 1940. It’s possible that Auden’s attitude toward his poem reflected conflicted feelings about his homosexuality. He and Isherwood were lovers until Isherwood moved to California in April 1939. About the time that Auden wrote “September 1, 1939,” he had become involved with Chester Kallmann, who ended their sexual relationship in 1941 when Auden insisted on mutual fidelity. All his life, Auden idealized marriage and longed for a marital-type relationship with someone he loved, which he never found. Whether such a relationship is possible for two gay men in our present cultural cesspool, I have no idea.
miguel cervantes:
Not yet. It’s on my list. Will probably do a new site instead of fixing the old one. Much new content to add. I’ll let you know when and if this happens. Thanks for asking — thanks for your interest.
PA Cat:
I just a moment ago published a post trying to answer that same question. I hadn’t yet seen your 5:03 comment when I published it. Take a look.
Neo–
I just did take a look, and I answered you there. Apologies for the online version of telephone tag.
IrishOtter49: IIRC, because he thought some of the lines were untrue and contrived. (…and apologies for adding to the telephone tag)
Singers:
Jane Monheit (born 1977 on Long Island) is a younger interpreter of the Great American Songbook. She listened to Ella growing up. Live at Iridium in NYC in 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNutORITHwA
Another younger singer who does the classics is Pittsburgh native Margot Bingham, who played Daughter Maitland on “Boardwalk Empire”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiKWA0-yXpI
And live, at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkd8adM3ngk
Finally, Carol Sloane, one of the last big band songbirds from the late 1950s-early 1960s, died at the beginning of this year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Sloane
Her version of “It Never Entered My Mind”, recorded live in 1962:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UB15VFNt-A
RIP.
A late Boomer, I had Depression parents and grew up listening with them to music programs on the breakfast table radio, so was introduced to this material early in life. I think–I hope–there are young people in the post-smartphone generation who can still appreciate it.
Prefer:
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqISqqbMhls
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c2YL1X8eMg
==
Neo, PA Cat, Hubert:
Thanks for the info on Auden.
Never did care for him. Even less now that I know he disdained Yeats and Easter 1916.
I revere Yeats. I practically worship him.
IrishOtter49:
Yeats is one of my very favorites, along with Frost. You might enjoy this post on a certain aspect of Yeats.
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I like old movies because of Gene Tierney. And in matters biblical I’m with IrishOtter, sometimes, for their pleasing sonorities, reading passages of TKJ aloud. I bet admirers Melville, Hemingway and Cormac MCarthy did too.
The Fifties had a reputation for being repressive and conformist, but they were also a time of American optimism and swagger. There was sophistication. People still dressed up for dinner and went to the theatre. Audrey Hepburn and (people wrongly thought) JFK. There was also a cool rebelliousness. Elvis, James Dean, Kerouac. Sinatra was thought of as old people music in the Sixties, but Boomers and Xers came around to him. Boomers mellowed as they grew older. Xers went through a real Rat Pack vogue in the Nineties.
If young people now aren’t rediscovering their parents or grandparents music, it may be because they never had to. Boomer music never really went away, so there was no special cachet in rediscovering it.
_________
I don’t think Auden was taking on or taking down Yeats. Yeats had misgivings about his great political poem and the wars that the Easter Rising touched off. Auden had misgivings about his political/topical poem. When poets touch on politics, they are often ambivalent, and we admire them more when they are. Auden and Yeats may not have been that different in their attitude towards political or newspaper poetry. I suspect Auden had more serious regrets about his earlier poem “Spain” and its line about “the necessary murder” than about “September 1, 1939.”
RE: UFOs and today’s general “uncertainty.”
I just ran across this interesting discussion with Eric Weinstein about his reaction to the UFO whistleblower, and whether or not he thinks his testimony could be a psyop.*
In the course of this discussion, though, Weinstein brings up the fact that we are all now groping around in a fog of uncertainty about everything, because all of our major institutions and our “experts” have discredited themselves, so much so that it is impossible to determine the truth of not only what the UFO whistleblower says, but of anything else as well, unless we are actually present to witness something for ourselves.
As I have commented before, so much disinformation—a firehose of supposed information and speculation–about the UFO phenomenon had been spread that what is actually happening within the government with regard to the UFO issue is impossible to find out; impossible to find the truth, the “needle” hidden under a “haystack of bullshit.”
Are there crash retrieval programs and aliens or not, or is all the hoopla a way of diverting attention from some other program, a way to misdirect our enemies to spend their money on research which will not do them any good, could there actually be a rogue group of scientists, government employees, and contractors—a government within the government–which has mastered vastly superior Alien technology and is concealing it and using it for their own ends and benefit, are there Aliens here on Earth, has our government even made agreements with them—where is the needle concealed within a mountain of misinformation and bullshit?
Weinstein gave this example.
You construct a fake UFO in a warehouse, and you run people through that warehouse and past that fake UFO–telling them not to look to the left or to the right or they will be shot–and, of course, they will look, and someone will eventually talk about the UFO in the warehouse.
To illustrate our contemporary dilemma Weinstein asked what would happen today if the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?
Everyone would have questions.
Did the attack actually happen, or was it just CGI? Could this have been a false flag operation? Was the news vastly exaggerated? Could we trust that the Administration was reporting what actually happened? Would the general public believe that such an attack by Japan had actually happened? Would some commentators take the position that we shouldn’t retaliate because we had somehow merited such an attack, due to something our country might possibly have done? Was it just a very unfortunate “misunderstanding”?
Would there be immediate retaliation, or would it take weeks of debate to come to such a Declaration of War?
Would enough members of Congress even be sufficiently convinced to vote for a Declaration of War?
Etc., etc.
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oahkNyL2ZNc
Just another open-thread comment that has nothing to do with Sinatra.
Oliver Anthony, now famous for “Rich Men North of Richmond,” recently did a long interview with Joe Rogan. The whole thing’s on Spotify, but I haven’t listened to it yet.
On Twitter (https://tinyurl.com/22nnj4vu), there’s an interview clip about Anthony’s recent dedication to Christianity and the Bible, especially those books that are most like songs. He suggests that his own music is far more religious than political, and that he has no faith in politicians of any sort. No surprise, I guess, but he’s very explicit and matter-of-fact about his new-found faith. Put together with his music, it’s hard not to be affected, even though I’m not religious. Worth a look, I think.
RE: China and Electric Vehicles
My go to Youtube Western commentators about China–laowhy76 and Serpentza–have been posting a lot of revelatory information about and images of the China they have dubbed the land of “shortcuts and facades.”
Below is a link to a recent report on China’s much publicized push for Electric Vehicles, and how it has apparently turned out to have been a very costly failure.*
Bonus video the “grab hag” “aunties” of China.**
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oahkNyL2ZNc
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evP2kOYf0gY
This popped up in my YouTube suggestions list today (after playing Danny B. Harvey’s Surfer Girls!).
Excerpts from La Bayadere, Angelina Vorontsova.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnN4rTl4WJE
i liked it so i thought i should share.
yahoo [dot] com keeps running news stories about how-
“The 14th Amendment can be used to stop Trump from being President”.
…No, it can’t.
The 14th amendment says, + I’m paraphrasing, that: if someone was found guilty of [treason or sedition], then the law prevents them from being elected as President.
For that to work: 1] he’d have to be found [guilty] of treason or sedition, AND THEN 2] then that law comes into effect.
It sounds like yahoo [dot] com wants to believe that Trump has been found guilty of these crimes, when he has not.
It sounds like yahoo [R] is doing unfair reporting.
As long as we’re doing poetry, from Yeats’ Second Coming:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Ripped from today’s headlines, no?
Such a wonderful album. Sinatra and Gordon Jenkins at their peak. I loved this album when it came out and I was eighteen, and now I’m “the man in the looking glass”!
well we saw with 9/11 didn’t we, although this had some first appearances mostly in europe, although it didn’t really flourish until after the 9-11 commission report,
which left a whole bushel of information,
Sinatra had an album, can’t recall when, “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers”. I think that was the title.
For some reason, the title alone built a world. Urban, small, up-scale bars, not entirely on the up and up and the more enticing for that, smokey rooms. Maybe I ought to get hold of it and see if the songs fit my picture.
While I liked Sinatra’s voice, never cared much for any of the songs he recorded. Then, later on, others covered them and I liked them better.
Go figure.
Before our wedding, my wife and I practiced some ballroom dancing. We danced to a Django Reinhardt version of “September Song,” and ever since it has been “our song.”
https://youtu.be/q2pgFCtiXaQ?si=QOs3-BkpKkFVaHLh
(I’m guessing that’s Hubert Rostain on clarinet.)