Ten Things You Won't Hear on New Year's

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ten Things You Won’t Hear on New Year’s

1. Stay up until midnight?  Why?
    
2. I’m not making any new year’s resolutions because I don’t need to; last year’s resolutions worked out so well.
    
3. We never watch professional football; there’s something un-American about watching millionaires in body armor beat each other up in taxpayer-funded stadia.
    
4. Hollywood gave the world such great films last year that I’m hoping they maintain their momentum in artistic quality this year.
    
5. On New Year’s we stay up late, almost until nine, playing chess.
    
6. No champagne for me, thanks.
    
7. Why would anyone spend the first day of the new year watching a network’s morning show b-team over-narrate a parade somewhere in Ohio?
    
8.  In the new fiscal year my company will be booking most of its travel with one of those new Asian airlines.  Hey, they’re the future, right?
    
9. Blackeyed peas and cabbage?  You’re going to put that stuff in your mouth?  How is that lucky?  Is there a blackeyed-pea-and-cabbage fairy?
    
10. Lift your glasses, everyone; I propose a toast to Kim Jong Un and Sony – a marriage made in, well, somewhere.

 

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Der Jong Un's Face

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Der Jong Un’s Face

 

In 1943 Disney released a Donald Duck cartoon, Der Fuhrer’s Face, in which Donald suffers a nightmare as an oppressed German worker in the Nazi time.   When he awakens he quacks that he is thankful to be in the U.S.A.  The film won an Academy Award but after World War II was withdrawn from circulation.  It was unneeded after the victory it helped bring about in some small way, and features cultural stereotypes that make it awkward viewing now. 

 

Der Fuhrer’s Face is propaganda, never pretended to be anything else, and needs no apology.  Every form of entertainment during World War II was part of the effort, and even when a film or other entertainment was not directly funded by the government it had to be approved by the government.  The entire economy was focused first on staying free and then on winning the war. 

 

However, long before the USA was in the war (which can be said to have begun in 1933), American filmmakers, free to make whatever movies they thought would sell, chose to show Nazis as evil:  Confessions of a Nazi Spy, The Mortal Storm, Clouds Over Europe, Sabotage, Waterloo Bridge, The Great Dictator, and others.  These films are not propaganda because they were not made under the direction of any government or under duress.

 

Although there was some Nazi attempt to subvert Hollywood before World War II, it appears to have been unsuccessful.  One cannot imagine the bosses of MGM, RKO, Warner Brothers, Republic, and Disney obeying Nazi orders in the 1930s.

 

One does not need to imagine an American film studio yield to the threats of a dictator now – because at least one studio has surrendered to a dictator.

 

Sony has self-censored a recently completed film, The Interview, because of purported / maybe / someone says threats of violence from North Korea.

 

Almost no one has seen The Interview, a comedy (probably not quite on the level of To Be or Not to Be) making fun of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (“Kim Jong Un” is Korean for “Poisonous Little Toad”).  Reviews of the movie suggest that it probably would have been direct-to-DVD followed by direct-to-the-trash-can.  The unseen film is now famous because of a campaign of, oh, transparency (once known as gossip) and the purported revelation of office tittle-tattle on the Orwellian telescreen.

 

The film studio’s files were said to have been snooped by North Korea, but one wonders who really did do the Ms. Grundy thing, if it was done at all.  Given the fashion in not checking the facts, from Dan Rather’s editors to Lena Dunham’s editors, one wonders if anything in a book, a newspaper, a television report, or on the Orwellian telescreen can be believed.

 

Were Sony’s electronic files really compromised?  If so, by whom?  North Korea?  China? Russia?  Or was the spilling of the metaphorical beans an action by a disgruntled, ungruntled, or gruntled employee? 

 

Der Fuhrer’s Face was wartime propaganda, and, recognized as such, it needs no explanation.  Whether or not American films made after Hollywood’s surrender to Kim Jong Un are foreign propaganda will need much explanation.

 

This was not a good week for the 1^st and 4^th amendments to the Constitution.  It wasn’t very good for the humans, either.

 

This column has not yet been vetted by Harvard Law School, North Korea, or The Brothers Castro.

 

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The Alligator of the Cave

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Neo-Platonism

 

or

 

The Alligator of the Cave

 

If the shadow behind the shade shifts shapes,

Souls shall shudder at the shimmering show

As shafts of sunlight shine reality

Upon the shabby, shop-soiled shibboleths

That long have formed seductive, sheeny shells,

Those shapeless shields that shutter shamefully

Humanity’s shallow, sheering shoreline

And shatter the shaken shards of constructs sham

To the chagrin of the shaken – but only

If the shadow behind the shade shifts shapes.

Pupils Fixed and Dilated

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Pupils Fixed and Dilated

 

He was not permitted to die in peace

The only mercy granted was release

From fear and mortars falling from the sky

There was no possibility of saying goodbye

And the river water stank, as did the night

His end was as flickering as the light

Pale gaspings, a fluttering pulse, dead sweat

D5W, battle dressings, and yet

The only mercy was in his release

He was not permitted to died in peace

 

Noisy, Shiny Things

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Noisy, Shiny Things

 

Loudspeakers dangling from the overhead

A telescreen magically descending

Air, light, and sound electrically controlled

By banks of glowing buttons and monitors

Radiance falling upon the holy drums

Upon the shimmering percussion set

Upon the amplifiers standing on guard

Lest a moment of God’s silence break through

As the people listen obediently to

Loudspeakers dangling from the overhead.

Upon Thoughtlessly Writing "No" in a Book

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Upon Thoughtlessly Writing “No” in a Book, The Last Divine Office,

by Geoffrey Moorhouse, Said Book Not The Borrower’s

To Mark, Fold, Bend, Dog-Ear, or Leave Lying Carelessly About

 

An Apology

To Mr. and Mrs. Jason Petty

And

Their Heirs and Successors
Forever

Princesses to Our Great King

 

Good Mr. Moorhouse lost the plot

One place in his book at a certain spot:

He curiously praised The Middle Way

(Same old heresies every day);

Your book’s borrower quite forgot himself -

‘Twas not his book from his own shelf -

But egregious Error disturbed him so

He protested with one word: “No”

Written above the offending line

In ink, not neatly, but fine

And, he prays, not obtrusively

Or alienating, you see,

Your children who will someday read

This good, sometimes misleading screed

And wonder why old Mister Mack

Subjected it to rude attack

For such is not the thing to do

To anything borrowed, old or new.

Please know your friend is very sorry

Yesterday, today, and tomorry

Rebuke him in any way you devise

But please spare him arraignment at the assize

And may our Lord please bless us all,

Our Lady, too, for we are small

In faith, unlike good Cuthbert, strong

For God and us – but this is too long

And time it is to make an end

By thanking you for the books you lend

And thanking God for you. Amen.

 

-Lavrentivs Maccabaeus Brendanvs DeAvla, His Mark: X

Poetry of the Occupation

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Poetry of the Occupation

 

“…trained in the politics of the day, believing the great new system invented

by a genius so great that they never bothered to verify its results.”

 

-John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

 

Political poetry occupies the streets

Brakes squealing to a stop before an idyll

Squads of inclusive stormtroopers disembark

Into men’s souls to enforce unity

Armed with warrants and inquisitions

The bills of indictment already drawn

Needing only a tap upon a screen

To serve in the office of a signature

And sensitive to death the personal life -

Political poetry occupies the streets.

But the Animals were First

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

But the Animals were First

 

“We read in Isaiah: ‘The ox knows its owner,

and the ass the master’s crib….’”

 

-Papa Benedict, The Blessings of Christmas

 

The ox and ass are in the Stable set

In service divine, as good Isaiah writes

A congregation of God’s creatures met

In honor of their King this Night of nights

And there they wait for us, for we are late

Breathless in the narthex of eternity

A star, a road, a town, an inn, a gate

Have led us to this holy liturgy:

Long centuries and seasons pass, and yet

The ox and ass are in the Stable set.

Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome

 

See now Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome

Three celebrants mitred with golden light          

And vested in pillar, temple, and dome

They lift life’s elements in sacred rite:                 

Jerusalem the Wild, where prophets sing

Athens the Reasoner, amid her vines                    

Rome, the Giver of Laws, whose trumpets ring

And send us civilization through wonders and signs                       

In faith and form and word and polychrome -

See now Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome

When Autumn Slipped Away

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

When Autumn Slipped Away

 

When Autumn slipped away into the night

Taking along her gentleness, her smiles

The creaking walls ticked minutes dark until

Winter arrived on wild winds winging south

And made dawn’s colors hide within the earth

Yesterday’s glowing woods – now cold and grey

Haunted by drips and damps and hopelessness

And voices from a summer’s yesterday:

The world was wan with poor, pale-patterned light    

When Autumn slipped away into the night

The Forces of Happiness

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Forces of Happiness

 

“There will be music, dancing, happiness….By order.”

 

-Town Crier in Dance of the Dead, an episode of The Prisoner

 

The Forces of Happiness are released

To worry out of their burrows those poor

Unfocused souls who mumble about their days

In happy, innocuous solitude

With books and cups of tea and scribbled lines

Of happy wonderings and teasing thoughts.

And such is not acceptable to those

Who suffer not the individual -

To herd him into organized submission

The Forces of Happiness are released.

 

Ten Things You Never Hear in December

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Ten Things You Never Hear in December

 

1. “Some of our Christmas gifts were made in the USA.”
    
2. “Every time It’s a Wonderful Life is broadcast, an angel rips its wings off.”
    
3. “Our radio station has pledged not to accept the use of fragments of hymns in advertising because chopping up religious songs fails to respect both faith and art.”
    
4. “It’s beginning to look a lot like Advent.”
    
5. “I love Hallmark Hanukkah movies.”
    
6. “Sometimes ya just want to kick Tiny Tim’s little crutch out from under him.”
    
7. “I can sing ‘Ding-Dong, Merrily on High’ and keep a straight face.”
    
8. “A reindeer got run over by Grandma.  The game warden was curious about a reindeer in East Texas.”
    
9. “We need to put the ‘X’ back into ‘Xmas!’”
    
10. “How tiresome of unoriginal newspaper writers and television programs in always coming up with different stuff about ‘the real meaning of Christmas.’  The real meaning of Christmas was made clear 2,000 years ago.”
     
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But the Animals were First

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

But the Animals were First

 

“We read in Isaiah: ‘The ox knows its owner,

and the ass the master’s crib….’”

 

-Papa Benedict, The Blessings of Christmas

 

The ox and ass are in the Stable set

In service divine, as good Isaiah writes

A congregation of God’s creatures met

In honor of their King this Night of nights

And there they wait for us, for we are late

Breathless in the narthex of eternity

A star, a road, a town, an inn, a gate

Have led us to this holy liturgy:

Long centuries and seasons pass, and yet

The ox and ass are in the Stable set.

Otto and Jim

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Otto and Jim

 

Sainsbury’s is a fairly new company in England, having been around only since 1869.  Now a large supermarket chain, its annual Christmas television mini-movie ad of three or four minutes is a minor marketing custom.

 

This year, on the centenary of the first Christmas of World War I, Sainsbury’s little Christmas film, wholly free of advertising, is set during on the Western Front in 1914.  With snow falling on the battle area and soldiers shivering in the muddy trenches at night, an English soldier opens a package from home to find a letter, a picture of a girl, perhaps his wife or girlfriend or sister, and a bar of chocolate. 

 

From across the mud and snow we hear German soldiers singing “Stille Nacht.” The English soldiers join in, but of course in translation as “Silent Night.”  It sounds hokey, but the director makes it work, and the singing really did happen in several places along the battle line a century ago.

 

In the grey, cold morning, our fictional English soldier climbs a ladder, waves his hat, and clambers out into No Man’s Land, almost provoking a fight.  But a German soldier quickly realizes that there is no attack and tells his comrades not to shoot. 

 

Our young English soldier and our young German soldier, followed by others from both sides, approach each other slowly, slowly, hands always in sight, and then meet in the wasteland between the trenches.

 

“My name is Jim.”

 

“Mein name ist Otto.”

 

Otto and Jim, both monolingual, can only shake hands and beam at each other over shared photographs until someone begins a footer match. For a brief hour English and German soldiers pose for pictures, play footer, and beam at each other a great deal because when you don’t share a language you can at least beam.  An English sergeant and a German sergeant are standing together beaming approval at the merriment when everyone hears shooting from down the line.  Hasty farewells are made, Otto and Jim shake hands one last time and wish each other “Happy Christmas” and “Frohe Weihnachten,” and everyone trudges sadly back to their duty stations.

 

As Otto resumes his position on the fire step he discovers that Jim has slipped his precious chocolate bar into Otto’s coat as a gift.  Back in the English trench, Jim wryly observes that all he will have for Christmas dinner is a bit of hardtack, and that’s okay.

 

And that’s it.  The end.  Sainsbury’s made a moment, and made it good.

 

The film is overlaid with better-than-average insta-emo music, and there is no advertising.   The weak, greeting card-ish “Christmas is for sharing” at the end is a clumsy and entirely redundant appendage.  The sharing was in the film; the producer compromises the moment by spelling it out. Further, both those who love this Christian holy day and those who, obedient some script, loathe it, can agree that there is far more to Christmas than a bumper sticker.

 

A hundred years later Otto and Jim, and now Jim’s girlfriend, are still on duty in “some corner of a foreign field,” while those who sent them there will, as  always, spend Christmas in comfort and safety decking the halls with their resumes and graduate degrees. 

 

Young soldiers on watch all over the world will know Christmas more truly than anyone because of their isolation and loneliness.  Remember to send them pictures and letters and maybe a bar of chocolate for Christmas again this year.

 

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