Sunday 2.5.50

Marvin's Room (1996) 

"Robert's First Day to Sunday School.

He held the New Testament tightly in his left hand, see?"

"peace to him, you are not those you imagine."

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

"That's how I wanted it--I like privacy...my needs come first. Still, I have here and there talked a little about my life: My father was a grocer; my mother, who helped him, after a long illness, died young. I had a younger brother who lived a hard and lonely life and died in his fifties. My mother and father were gentle, honest, kindly people, and who they were and their affection for me to some degree made up for the cultural deprivation I felt as a child. They weren't educated, but their values were stable.... On the other hand, there were no books that I remember in the house, no records, music, pictures on the wall. On Sundays I listened to somebody's piano through the window. At nine I caught pneumonia..."

Malmud, Bernard. Interview by Daniel Stern. "The Art of Fiction No. 52," The Paris Review.

"It was on the table -- it was spoiling -- it was spoilt!"

"Mrs. Beever's excited mistrust dropped at the mere audacity of this: there was something perceptibly superior in the girl who could meet half way, so cleverly, a suspicion she was quite conscious of and much desired to dissipate. The lady of Eastman looked at her hard, reading her desire in the look she gave back. 'Trust me, trust me,' her eyes seemed to plead; 'don't at all events think me capable of any self-seeking that stupid or poor. I may be dangerous to myself, but I'm not so to others; least of all am I so to you.'"

The Other House, Henry James

Rocky (1976)

"'Patrodeman Madcuso. Uddercover.' A badge flashed in front of George's pimples. 'Cubb alogg wid me.'"

Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

"...judging by their moist edges, the jelly had been sucked."

Back to School (1986)

"If both your wrists were broken, how could you write me a letter?"

Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

DO NOT DISTURB

"'Ignatius, what's all this trash on the floor?' 

'That's my worldview that you see. It must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step.'... 

'If I know it was like this, I'd been in here long ago.' 

'I don't know why you are here now, as a matter of fact, or why you have this sudden compulsion to invade my sanctuary. I doubt whether it will ever be the same after the trauma of this intrusion by an alien spirit.' 

'I came to talk to you, boy. Get your face out of them pillows.'"

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

the pulse

Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003) 

"Perhaps, if records still exist, one could trace resemblances here and there between the two histories, but my impression is that these are nowhere striking."

Goose of Hermogenes, Ithell Colquhoun

Mommie Dearest (1981)

"Certain ghosts feel little of that attraction of haunting which so powerfully influences many others, for these former leave upon the earth a physical manifestation in a human being. Sometimes this counterpart appears among their descendants; but when this is not so, another being is chosen and possessed, though perhaps this one is never wholly alien in a physical sense. The chosen one looks henceforth to the ghost as to an illustrious ancestor, and draws from it authority and inspiration. 

The chosen being may be singled out in various ways, either before or after the death of the possessor. It may happen that those two halves of Plato's sphere cannot join on earth, but must be parted by a dividing dimension before they can work as one, the earth too narrow to hold them. One of them has to die. They struggle to decide which is to be the victim, and at last one of them kills the other. The survivor acts in self-defence, and there are this many murders and suicides that go unrecognized by law. But this being feels, mixed with pain and remorse, a subtle triumph, for it knows that from now onwards it drinks life at a double spring. That very identity which separated it from its stirrer during the day, at night draws them together. They are undivided but working in a manner both hidden and expressed... I am not here any longer, I am dead, it is only my unhappy ghost... I am lying in a small graveyard at the edge of a thirsty plain, the dust is on my eyelids I cannot see, the earth is in my nostrils I cannot breathe, the pebbles are in my ears I cannot hear, the stones are at my feet I cannot move. We two have lain there a single corpse under rocky hills since the beginning of time, and one ghost is still walking, and one has ceased to walk."

Goose of Hermogenes, Ithell Colquhoun

the vow of stability

Days of Heaven (1978)

"So his was the classic Ellis Island story... it must have been extraordinary. He was a very unadventurous man; he didn't have a strong personality--he was timid. He still is a mystery to me. I wonder if he didn't burn himself out in this tremendous initial adventure, where it wasn't really too much for him, and once having a niche for himself somewhere, he just didn't have the guts to become much of a personality."

Gordimer, Nadine. Interview by Jannika Hurwitt. "The Art of Fiction No. 77," The Paris Review.

progress of the soul

Leon: the Professional (1994)

"Unvirtuous weeds might long unvex'd have stood; / But he's short-lived that with his death can do / most good."

"XVII." Progress of the Soul, John Donne

"I know that you're nauseous right now and I'm hopin' to lead you to victory"

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

"...the glass floor is insecure from a psychological point of view as well. To walk over a void is like walking on nothing. It gives the same sensation of dizziness and falling as that which is felt on top of a mountain or high tower. The depth has a magnetic effect -- it 'sucks' us downward -- a phenomenon indicating that depth, just as all other types of space, is a potential sphere of activity which we 'try out' by 'falling'. The transparent floor conveys, therefore, a spontaneous feeling of insecurity and danger."

"The Open Floor," Archetypes in Architecture, Thomas Thiis-Evensen
"Swimming Pools (Drank)," Good Kid M.A.A.D City, Kendrick Lamar

break it up

3 Women (1977)

"The mirrored floor gives no main directional indication of space-- one finds oneself in its centre. But, this centre is not a specific place on the floor, rather it is like the centre of a 'sphere' in which all directions are equal.... On the mirror floor we find ourselves, therefore, in the middle of what is in principle a homogenous and directionless space.... 

... The reflecting floor is an 'indistinct' mirror floor.... The reflection creates a belowness, one which shifts between light and dark in that objects, cieling and walls are transformed and converted into diffuse forms as they are reflected downwards. The characteristic has a counter effect on objects above the floor. Objects are optically detached and freed from the floor on which they stand. They seem to stand only on their own shadows."

Archetypes in Architecture, Thomas Thiis-Evensen

"...one of those deviations by which man thinks to reconstruct himself."

The Paper Chase (1973)

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

what shocks the system

There Will Be Blood (2008)

"'I began to mourn for my spirit, and the spirits of all people who cast a shadow a long way beyond what they are, and for the beasts that walk out of the darkness alone; I began to wail for all the little beasts in their mothers, who would have to step down and begin going decent in the one fur that would last them their time. ... 

...And then at the child -- there was terror in it and it was running away from something grown up; I saw that she was sitting still and she was running; it was in her eyes and in her chin, drawn down, and her eyes wide open.'"

"Watchman, What of the Night?" Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

drama queen, "a dealer in second-hand"

Mr. Mom (1983)

"'Shut up,... Shut up, you don't know what you are talking about. You talk all the time and you never know anything. It's such an awful weakness with you. Identifying yourself with God!'"

"The Squatter," Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

first, the burnout

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

"Two spirits were working in her, love and anonymity. Yet they were so 'haunted' of each other that separation was impossible."

"Night Watch," Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

"With the fury of a fanatic he hunted down his own disqualification..."

Rocky (1976)

"From the mingled passions that made up his past, out of a diversity of bloods, from the crux of a thousand impossible situations, Felix had become the accumulated and single--the embarrassed."

"Bow Down," Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

maybe tomorrow

The Big Chill (1983)

nothing fits

Wise Blood (1979) 

"If our actions take place below the ground, we become dependent on its characteristics, we are in the clutch of the ground. We are faced with primordial forces, the ground's own phenomena. To be beneath the ground means that we have left the near and familiar which is above the ground to enter into a lower region unknown and confining. The way in which the surface leads us down into the ground is, however, decisive for our impressions. If the surface cracks and breaks open, we 'fall'. The sensation of falling, of plunging through empty space is fraught with fear and danger. If, on the other hand, the earth sinks as in a trough, the ground follows long and we feel we are being 'guided' down."

"If the level of our actions is above the mass, our spontaneous reaction is one of independence. We are in control of the ground and liberated from the depths beneath. In this case a feeling of superiority may be the result. The scale of variations within this shared experience depends upon equally specific situations."

"Interplay in Nature's Floor," Archetypes in Architecture, Thomas Thiis-Evensen.

The Ace of Cups

The Paper Chase (1973)

"I will drink of it in order to live; I will not rely on myself and be lost... Weak as I am, I shall draw near, for it is not the healthy who need the physicians, but the sick." (St. Augustine)

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy, "203: The Invitation to the Banquet"

"in my breast-meat there is a famine"

Grease 2 (1982)

"'I consecrate myself entirely to You; invade me, take me, possess me wholly. Be the penetrating light which illumines my intellect, the gentle motion which attracts and directs my will, the supernatural energy which gives energy to my body. Complete in me Your work of sanctification and love. Make me pure, transparent, simple, true, free, peaceful, gentle, calm, serene even in suffering, and burning with charity toward God and my neighbor.'" (Sr. Carmela of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.)

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy, "189: The Descent of the Holy Spirit"

reserved for Hart

"When the contemplative life--considered as an assiduous seeking after union with God--is really fervent, it cannot fail to rekindle in the soul the burning fire of the apostolate. One who has experience, in an intimate contact with God, the ineffable reality of His love for men, cannot fail to burn with the desire to win all to that love."

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy, "184: Mary's Apostolate"

farewell to the flesh

Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh (1995)

"It is true, O Mary, that on the day of my baptism the Holy Spirit diffused His charity in me; but my self-love has halted its growth, and I who have so little love for my God, have likewise very little love for my neighbor. O most loving Mother, see how I need to have my heart dilated with charity! Stir up, then, and nourish that virtue in me and grant that, having given myself to the service of God, I may give myself to that of my neighbor, with kindness and humility, promptness and generosity."

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy, "181: Mary and Fraternal Charity"

"It was easy indeed not to speak when the difficulty was to find words."

Chapter XV: Mexican Standoff

Chapter XVI: Two of Swords

Chapter V

Desert Hearts (1985)

"What had her whole life been but an effort toward completeness and perfection?"

Paper Moon (1973)

"What had taken place in her above all was that a long resentment had ripened. She hated the effacement to which English usage reduced the widowed mother; she had discoursed of it passionately to Fleda; contrasted it with the beautiful homage paid by other countries to women in that position, women no better than herself, whom she had seen acclaimed and enthroned, whom she had known and envied; made in short as little as possible a secret of the injury, the bitterness she found in it. The great wrong Owen had done her was not his 'taking up' with Mona--that was disgusting, but it was a detail, an accidental form; it was his failure from the first to understand what it was to have a mother at all, to appreciate the beauty and sanctity of the character. She was just his mother as his nose was just his nose, and he had never had the least imagination or tenderness or gallantry about her."

"With such a mother to give him the pitch how could he take it so low?"

The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James

showtime

Age of Summerhood (2013)

"Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play. From in front, the stupid lines and grotesque situations would have made him squirm with annoyance, but because he saw the perspiring stagehands and the wires that held up the tawdry summerhouse with its tangle of paper flowers, he accepted everything and was anxious for it to succeed."

The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West

Sherman's "On the March"

Morning sun! Stiff brim!
On the county courthouse steps,
the beat reporter

waits for the story.
Sits down and dries out his flask.
Fingers his brim limp.

In court, on trial,
the bait from Park Avenue
pleads, "I'm so sorry!"

her hem full of staples

School Ties (1992)

An aged woman's
nude stocking rolled down her calf,
between knee and foot;

no ankle. Metal
and twelve year old yellowed foam
hold up her body.