Although they are not fully under control, the wildfires are becoming more manageable. This has allowed more and more residents in these here parts to return to the natural rhythm of things. And, being late October, this means metric measures like this:

That’s right. ‘Tis the season. For all kids—good and less than—time to go a-haunting.

In preparation for this annual rite, to try to peer inside and fathom the thing that is All Hallow’s Eve, I took a neighborhood stroll. It being years since I’ve partaken of the American version of this event—the one where “the invisible veil that separates this world from the realm of the dead supposedly (becomes) permeable,” where we seek to guide the wandering dead through the shadows, and steer them to a place of mental and spiritual rest. And here is what I found . . .

I wonder if this looks anything like the haunted bogs and balconies and ballastrades around you, wherever that may be.

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—tjmHolden

A couple of vectors brought into quick confluence:

1. The San Diego wildfires rage.

While . . .

2. Perusing a back-issue of The New York Review, I come across this quote from Don DeLillo, on the occasion of publication of his 1991 novel, Mao II:

In a repressive society a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that’s filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.... People who are powerless make an open theater of violence. True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.

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—tjmHolden

Sunrise doesn’t last all morning
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day . . .

All things must pass
All things must pass away

-- George Harrison, All Things Must Pass

Deborah Kerr passed today. As with all people and all things, eventually there comes a passing.

Being of a different generation, I didn’t have intimate awareness of Kerr. But sharing the common cloth that enfolds all generations through pop, I knew of her. In their twenties and thirties, my parents sat in theaters—smiling, chuckling, weeping, fretting in relative reel-time—as Kerr emoted and kissed and sang and danced on-screen. I, probably like you, have only known her from images like the one below, in coffee-table books, or else in scenes flitting across the TV screen or on DVD.

So, when I read the obit here what had been basically just a name and a set of two-hour diversions, became something more substantial; something organic and teeming with life.  For those of you - like me—who really only knew Kerr second hand, it turns out that she had quite a life. Quite a PopMatters kind of life. The kind of life that contributed to the popular, entertainment and artistic currents of our times. The times of your grandparents’ or parents’ lives, sure, but yours, too, Even if you’ve never seen From Here to Eternity or The King and I or An Affair to Remember, or . . . for that matter, Sleepless in Seattle. Because, Kerr was part of the stream—a significant stone in that stream—who helped, in some small way, to shape the popular world of today. The one burbling around us; the one that washes up over us in an incessant torrent—no different that the waves crashing over the lovers in From Here to Eternity . . .

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—tjmHolden

There was a game we played in grad school. Well, actually the professors taught us a “concept” in the classroom that we students converted into a parlor game after. Kids being “clever”. We played the game any time it seemed that the gatekeepers were trying to put one over on us. You know, those usual suspects:

Big government.
Big business.
. . . Big effing deal.

The courses we learned it in were Intro to Journalism, Communication Studies, Semiology. Anything with pictures, basically; the game worked equally well in all of them. If the game had had a theme song, it might have been that Rod Stewart ditty:

I couldn’t quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats
‘cause it’s all been said before
Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off
You didn’t have to come here anyway
So remember, every picture tells a story don’t it

Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells a Story

Sure, every picture tells a story, Rod. However, what we learned—what we knew, what we applied in the parlor, and the message we carried out in the world beyond—was that depending on where you sit, what angle you take, every picture can tell a different story. Or, at least, every picture has the potential for telling you a different story.

Which is a good rule to remember, an important caveat to consider, something worth pondering, as one goes through life’s (peripatetic) paces.

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—tjmHolden