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THE OTHER STUFF

Whatever doesn't fit elsewhere.

loving malick

1/18/2021

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December 1, 2020. Today I start my retrospective of all Terrence Malic movies in the order of their release. Of course I have already seen all of them in that order, rushing out to the theater or grabbing the first DVD release in later years. Most I have seen at least twice, several many more times than that. But this will be my first attempt to watch them all consecutively in a short timeframe. I hope to average about one a week.
​Missing from this discussion is “Voyage of Time,” a documentary by Malick released in 2016 as a 40 minute IMAX production and a 90 minute feature. Why omit? I have never had the chance to see it. It is available on DVD only in an edition not coded for most U.S. players.
 
This is a love letter, not a critique, and for that I make no apology. I’m writing it for myself, but I’m inviting you to step in and share if that is your desire. An offering, not a demand.
 
We begin at the beginning:

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COULD BE SEEN

9/23/2020

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​No doubt everyone who reads and everyone who writes has a construction or phrase that is anathema. For me it is “could be seen.” Every time I run across it I find myself kicked out of the reading process into my editorial mode to think of ways to correct or improve. Too often its use strikes me as authorial laziness.
 
I have just finished rereading “A Boy’s Own Story” by Edmund White. For me this is one of the most beautifully composed works of imaginative fiction ever. One might say, and one does, that it is one of the most overly beautifully composed works ever, to the degree that one wonders if the extravagant beauty of the net diminishes even further the small fish caught therein.
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Sawyerville: The Early Years

9/15/2020

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Photograph by William Christenberry

Preface: Various readers who have encountered Sawyerville on this website have expressed interest in knowing more about the community.  The following piece is cribbed from information found in my two memoirs (which see under "Jonathan's Books"),  which has been edited together and expanded for an unpublished autobiography.

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LABOR DAY WEEKEND

9/6/2020

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​Labor Day is not a day but a weekend.
 
Christmas is a day. Yes, attendant events take up a lot of time before (especially) and after, but the day itself is what’s most important. Ditto Thanksgiving. And Independence Day. But Labor Day itself is just the last day in that weekend.

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Revisiting Avengers: Thoughts and Musings

9/4/2020

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Marvels Cinematic Universe: The Infinity Saga, Phases 1 – 3 (to be more precise), begins for me with “Iron Man” in 2008 and ends with “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019. Some 22 movies. I could include “Spider-Man: Far from Home” in this, but for me that is coda or possibly even the start of Phase 4. And the final minutes of “Endgame” sure do suggest a major pause.

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WOODROW: HIS LIFE AND TIMES

6/29/2020

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​Woodrow died during the third week of October, 2019. Some of my followers on Facebook had been able to keep up with his life and times, and they and I miss him greatly. I have decided that it is time for a retrospective look at the “Mayor of Sawyerville.” 

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BOTTLE FOUND ON CHINKAPIN HILL

5/8/2020

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For the past several weeks I have been playing around with a short story, and it seems to be finally in a condition satisfactory enough to me for it to be posted on my blog. Feel free to read it: won't cost you a thing.

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FEARLESS

5/1/2020

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Recently I watched Peter Weir’s 1993 movie “Fearless” again. I’ve always liked it hugely. I think now I like it more than ever.

For me it is thematically and stylistically closer to his earlier movies “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975) and “The Last Wave” (1977).

In the earlier movie, a group of teachers and young girls from a finishing school picnic at Hanging Rock on Valentine’s Day in 1900, and a young teacher and some the girls go missing. They are never found, and the movie becomes a meditation on unsolved mystery and its effects.

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A HIDDEN LIFE

4/16/2020

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“A Hidden Life,” the latest Terrence Malick movie, arrived in the mail this morning. I spent the afternoon watching all 2 hours and 54 minutes of it. It is a movie that could have been made by no one other than Malick. I see reflections and reminders of every one of his previous movies in this one.

The story is simple. A young farmer with a wife and 3 little girls and an aged mother cannot bring himself to swear allegiance to a man whom he believes to be an evil dictator who has taken his country into an unjust war and who is killing innocent people.

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BURYING THE DEAD

4/15/2020

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I recently saw that the idea of using New York City parks for temporary mass burial of victims of COVID-19 was being floated. My first reaction: why temporary? My reaction upon deeper consideration: why temporary?
​

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