Friday, October 2, 2009

Friday Infatuation


John Muir


When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty." — fromTravels in Alaska (1915)


If you haven't watched it, you should tune in to the PBS special series of Ken Burns' America's Parks. It's a glorious paean to our country's wild and natural beauty, a call to preserve that beauty and an homage to those men and women whom I would call saints who wrote and fought for that preservation.  It's ironic that this radical government idea comes at a time when our whole country is agonizing over "socialism" and the role of government, whether good or bad. The series is a testament to what good government can do, namely preserve a natural environment essential to not just our lives but our souls.


(And I'm in love, currently, with John Muir, the writer and naturalist who is featured prominently in the special.)







My other infatuation is the movie Bright Star, that I saw last night. I went by myself and sat in the darkened theater, utterly transported by the story of the Romantic poet John Keats and his beloved Fanny Brawne. The movie was highly stylized and achingly romantic, and while I'm sure there are those who will believe it to be pretentious, I was in heaven. The cinematography was gorgeous and hearing Keats' poetry again, after so many years, made me want to memorize it.


Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
    Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
    Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
    Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
    Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.




9 comments:

  1. I often think of how, if the idea of libraries were to come up now, they would be dismissed out-of-hand. The government should pay to let people borrow books? And get on the internet? And look at magazines? And, and, and...all the beautiful, glorious things that libraries provide?
    Same with national parks and yes, that is a great documentary. And now I want to watch that movie. BTW, I love to go to movies by myself but haven't in a very long time. I need to do that again.

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  2. I haven't crawled into a movie theatre alone in about a year, I think it is time to go.

    Love Renee xoxo

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  3. Hello, I'm a friend of Lakeland Jo's, and I really appreciated your comments both on Muir and on dear old Keats. I plan to politely ignore the people who find it pretentious, it was just so beautifully done. And likewise the Burns. Great blog.

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  4. Elizabeth,yes, I agree, and if they do remake it you would think they would make it even better than the original.

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  5. oops, I sent that before I was finished. I haven't seen Bright Star,but I will look it up. Thanks for the tip!

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  6. we caught some of the parks special the other night and it looks amazing but i'm afraid our current Weeds addiction won out.

    i'm going to look for that movie. i love that transported feeling.

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  7. I LOVE John Muir too! I think he was patience personified .... with all the cumbersome photographic equipment he had to lug around (sans vehicle and convenient campgrounds and rest stops) .... backpacker/photographer/explorer/old guy too! wow!

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  8. oh, ive been dying to see the Parks special on pbs!! thank you for reminding me. i havent heard of the movie, but it looks right up my alley too :). next time i get to the movies... like in 25 years, i'll be sure to check it out. :)

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  9. I love to imagine crawling into a movie like this on my own. Soon...soon...

    I get the giggles about socialism...as though it is a scary thing, a government making decisions for the good of its people. Isn't that what they're supposed to do? (Just a whacky Canadian...and I don't even think I'm a socialist.)
    xo
    erin

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