This cat, this large boy cat who is bigger than many dogs, has been assailed by tics and twitches of the stomach, eventually losing appetite and hiding, which is the definite signal for vet intervention. He isn't that lovable, not a cuddler, nor likes being picked up; he is the first at the door to greet me with many chirps and meows, and will go to the dripping bath tub tap to get a drink, getting his head wet, then coming to me into the living area to be tissued off. He will do this three times in a row for the attention and fuss.
He was sitting calmly at the vet's when I first saw him, the young vet tech said that this was the mellowest cat he had ever, and so I brought him home to balance out my then four girl cats. However, this tech lied, sort of; Steve isn't bothered by noise, and if something crashes, he runs towards it to see what happened. I dropped a glass a week ago, and his insistence at being at the scene of the crime, INSISTENCE, earned him a small swat with the broom as he was fighting my pushes to get his butt out of there; it's broken glass, you eedjit! And if you have ever dropped an IKEA glass, you know that the Swedish Bork Bork Borkness splinters into a million shards and flies out in exacting concentricity. It is the devil in silica with the breath of pickled herring. I should switch to industrial strength Anchor Hocking.
So he is the protector of the house, the ambassador who greets you, he's the dog. Steve had been declawed, (and it's a butcher job), then abandoned by his original owners to an outside life which you just don't do to a cat without claws, possibly because he can be a son of a bitch; neighbors took care of him through the winter, leaving him outside however, and eventually bringing him in to my vet to see if he could land a home. They left a $100 fund to entice anyone to adopt him, a kitty bed, and numerous toys. They cared for him, which told me that under the gruffness was perhaps indeed a mellow personality. I'm good with rescues, drawing out the oddities while finding the goodness inside, unless they are insane, and yes, there are animals as susceptible to brain chemistry as we.
The first time I combed him, he twitched in surprise as if what the hell is this but I like it. I stopped before he decided he had enough, but the next day, guess who was sitting at the combing station, which is the toilet with the lid down. He grew to be fond of me, so fond that one night I dreamt that Alan Rickman was massaging my foot; Alan purred...rrrrrrt, baybay, and I awoke; it wasn't Rickman, but Steve, having a date with my blanketed foot. He was launched off with several swears, whacked with a pillow, and hasn't done it since. Neither has Alan.
The first time Mr. Mellow went back for a physical check, he drew blood on the vet and two of her techs, crapped and peed on the examining table, and told all of us to go to hell. He now has a flag on his file, but I told them, look, I got him from you folks, how is this unknown? They gave me the haha smile, we pulled one on you because you understand animals bait. Sure, but don't enlist me to reform a wolverine. Steve's okay. He has a warmth in him that wants to be loved; he recognizes that and has his temper, but is working with me on trust issues. He's a good boy. He hates Cracky McCrackhead.
After a battery of god knows the price tests and knocking him o-u-t so they could get a blood sample, he was declared healthy and the loss of appetite was the result of intestinal inflammation. They gave him a shot of prednisone and 12 tablets for me to give him at home. Har. I may be able to get the first one in as it will be unexpected, but the next and next and next, well, I'd rather give him shots. A friend had wrapped her cat up in 70's curtains like a golden Egyptian cat taco to get a pill in, but they become adept at closing their throats and spitting it out and I can't blame them. Steve loves chili, so without onions or raisins (I put raisins in), he gets a spoonful. I mashed up a tablet into a bit of chili, tasted it, and if you learn anything in this lifetime from me besides that IKEA glasses shatter, know that prednisone is one of the bitterest, tongue-killing, dandruff from a bear's ass substance on this planet. No chili is covering that, and so I dumped experiment #1 down the sink, wondering how drain bacteria reacts to steroids. Yah. We pomp it opp, make sandwiches right out of yoo refrigerator, lady.
Yesterday I erred and read through Stephen King's "Misery". I should not read Stephen, as affable a fellow he seems to be; I don't watch films where people get hurt, I don't read mystery, horror, or crime stories. The imagination interprets each creak and sigh of the building as a break-in; I go through the victim's terror, what drive does someone have to create horrific pain to another? Nope, no thanks. It happens, all this horror happens, and reading the psychological methods King designs for his characters scares the bejeesus out of me to the point of nausea. But scientific applications don't bother me, I wanted to be a medical illustrator; I'll be the first one to go find your pancreas if it drops out and help put you back together.
King's story stayed with me for much of the night before turning in, but then Steve the Cat came by and butted his handsome head into my shoulder. Kai was on my lap, and Snowbelle at the end of the sofa, as she is now. The apprehension left, as the cause of it is dead and scattered, and to further a change in course, I picked up a Garrison Keillor book of verse to read and remember. Steve stayed with me, for which I was glad to see him on the way back to his old self, and also for his company.
I dreamt of fields and snow. Large flakes scuttered down, weaving trails in the air then settling into the tall, now yellowed grasses. Houses were at the far end of the field, and I was visiting my Grandmother in one of them. She always served peas in milk and butter, and there was a bowl on the table. It was a simple image, but a memory of safety and love conjured at just the right moment. There are pleasant memories from long ago that hold us to a steady course, think of one now, reflect upon it as you lay in bed this evening, happy in the knowledge of you, a part of you which stays by your side. A truth.
Time disappear, silver moon rise.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Ring In the New
Just be sure that you are ready; flying willy-nilly into a half-baked idea costs time, can present bottomless regrets, but teaches your ass to prepare and keep both eyes open. Taking chances seems to be encouraged, how often have you heard that career-wise you should follow your heart? Well, good luck, philosophy degree; nice knowing you, Liberal Arts; you'll be working somewhere soon, but most likely not in your area of choice; scrabbling for medical benefits will become your mantra, as will paying off whatever student loan lingers. And it will harangue you, like Marley's ghost rattling chains at the beginning of each month, sliding the icy grip of frustration around your heart. If it weren't for this, you could get a car. A home. Go on a trip. Breathe.
Do I regret college, the master's degree? Sometimes. I will never make enough money in this poor district to pay back the loan until I am 85; the thing to do is get a second job. Invest in getting my art out there within its limited audience. But going to school helped me, helped my self-image after being told I wasn't smart enough by one particular entity; well, I missed summa cum laude by four tenths of a point, but will gladly accept magna just as happily. Smart? I'm smart. I could wrap my brain around your neck and start you up like a lawnmower.
I wasn't prepared to support my son and myself adequately with the little education that I had when leaving the marriage. Regrets on the divorce? Only that I didn't borrow the money for a lawyer and went the route of a mediator as I wanted to be out as fast as possible. Gave up a lot, said the lawyer who reviewed the paperwork, but at the time there was no time. How could I have been ready? To me, marriage wasn't supposed to be a competition, a place where an emergency hatch was necessary; was that naive? Warning signs were everywhere, yet I clung to the image of helping in hope that it would be good enough. I had little security as it was, how could it have been any worse the other side of the signed papers? Would have been better having a source of substantial income had I gained a degree earlier in life.
But woulda, coulda, shoulda. Just examine your motives, are you escaping and have a place to stay? Are there accommodations for your kids and pets? Can you support yourself, or do you still have to rely on the potential ex's money? What about health insurance? Food? If the situation is dangerous, get out immediately; if not, find what is out there to help you, and let me tell you, not much. You had better learn how to take care of yourself, for jumping into a new situation without a way for you to support yourself is difficult but not impossible.
Women file for divorce more often than men, with the most cited reason being neglect. Indifference. Becoming strangers to each other. Not physical abuse or alcoholism, but being ignored. Is this such a great demand, to be able to trust, feel emotional availability, thoughtfulness? To participate in each others' lives? Find out which part is missing, learn what you need, and find out what you need to do to grow into the next phase of life. Don't depend on anyone else to do what you must for yourself; it's a battle, but you will gain a self-confidence that will carry you through to safety.
But tonight, this winter night, each of us tuck in, settle, let go. Let go of every influence that takes you away from becoming, that is a cover for the deeper issues inside. You know what they are, you can face them and put forth resolution under your own steam. You can, you are wonderful, marvelous, a force of life made of the carbon which built the stars. See yourself in them. Sleep, now. I will watch over.
Do I regret college, the master's degree? Sometimes. I will never make enough money in this poor district to pay back the loan until I am 85; the thing to do is get a second job. Invest in getting my art out there within its limited audience. But going to school helped me, helped my self-image after being told I wasn't smart enough by one particular entity; well, I missed summa cum laude by four tenths of a point, but will gladly accept magna just as happily. Smart? I'm smart. I could wrap my brain around your neck and start you up like a lawnmower.
I wasn't prepared to support my son and myself adequately with the little education that I had when leaving the marriage. Regrets on the divorce? Only that I didn't borrow the money for a lawyer and went the route of a mediator as I wanted to be out as fast as possible. Gave up a lot, said the lawyer who reviewed the paperwork, but at the time there was no time. How could I have been ready? To me, marriage wasn't supposed to be a competition, a place where an emergency hatch was necessary; was that naive? Warning signs were everywhere, yet I clung to the image of helping in hope that it would be good enough. I had little security as it was, how could it have been any worse the other side of the signed papers? Would have been better having a source of substantial income had I gained a degree earlier in life.
But woulda, coulda, shoulda. Just examine your motives, are you escaping and have a place to stay? Are there accommodations for your kids and pets? Can you support yourself, or do you still have to rely on the potential ex's money? What about health insurance? Food? If the situation is dangerous, get out immediately; if not, find what is out there to help you, and let me tell you, not much. You had better learn how to take care of yourself, for jumping into a new situation without a way for you to support yourself is difficult but not impossible.
Women file for divorce more often than men, with the most cited reason being neglect. Indifference. Becoming strangers to each other. Not physical abuse or alcoholism, but being ignored. Is this such a great demand, to be able to trust, feel emotional availability, thoughtfulness? To participate in each others' lives? Find out which part is missing, learn what you need, and find out what you need to do to grow into the next phase of life. Don't depend on anyone else to do what you must for yourself; it's a battle, but you will gain a self-confidence that will carry you through to safety.
But tonight, this winter night, each of us tuck in, settle, let go. Let go of every influence that takes you away from becoming, that is a cover for the deeper issues inside. You know what they are, you can face them and put forth resolution under your own steam. You can, you are wonderful, marvelous, a force of life made of the carbon which built the stars. See yourself in them. Sleep, now. I will watch over.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Dorothy Mae
My Ford Escort was in the shop for brakes, and I remember the walk from the funeral director's to the subway station, having had to "borrow" the money from him to take the train to home. Rain hit the snow on the ground, causing each footstep to churn the mixture into slush; I was grateful to reach the doors of the train station, inside it was warm. Took the rail home, and walked the two blocks to the apartment, still raining in big, sloppy drops that were on their way to becoming snow as the temperature dropped.
Brian was there already, for I had sent him on ahead in the taxi we had taken to get to the funeral home. I don't remember much of that day after that, except for unpacking the Hefty bags the nursing home had given me and Bri to take my mother's belongings in, but the morning remained clear as any, each minute had it's own title, beginning, middle, and ending till the next breath, the next breath, the last breath.
Today is the anniversary of my mother's death. Someday I will forget it, as sure as everything else will be, except not today. I had visited her that night before, taken to the nursing home by my mother-in-law after she was no longer my mother-in-law. Little did I know it would be the last time I saw my Mom; just two days before, she was up, sitting in her wheelchair, and I wrapped my scarf around her neck, she loved sunflowers so. Didn't know who I was anymore, but that didn't ever bother me; I knew who she was, and chatted with her about people she knew, told her stories, talked of her parents whom she thought were still alive. But there was a marker that gave me a wrenching realization that time was ending; her ankles and feet had blotches of grey. Not pink-grey or blue-grey, but grey as paint, not human flesh. Circulation was shutting down. I left my scarf with her and kissed her goodbye. I love you, too, she said.
That last night, she had developed a high fever, 105°; my brother had visited and told me that as he took her hand, she screamed at the pain and sat straight up in bed, something she had not been capable of in years. I saw her after he had left, curled on her side, able only to nod as if in a dream; sleep, Mom; I love you. She nodded in agreement. The next morning there was a phone call from a nurse saying that if I wanted to see her, I had better get to the nursing home, now. My son and I clambered into a cab that got us there quickly, where my father and brother already were.
The lady who shared her room had been put in the lounge area, my brother and I went in to her room along with Bri. She was on her back, staring at the ceiling, her pupils so wide that you could not see the iris, and breathing in gasps. I am not going into details of the next three hours; suffice to say that she ebbed away softly as a tide leaving the shore. Bare minutes before, as I held her, I felt a wave of dizziness grab me; oh no, I thought, not now; but inside of me came an image of a golden shape ascending against a reddened sky; did it have wings? My brother and I cupped her cheeks as she passed.
Brian and I stayed to gather her belongings, and to make arrangements for her to be picked up. The plastic bags of her belongings went with Bri in the cab after I was dropped off at the funeral home to sign papers. Sludging through the snow and ice underscored the hollow shock of losing her, in spite of her incapacities visited by old age and the eventuality of life.
Who was she? Born in 1920, she knew the Depression, of going without, of gathering hickory nuts in the woods for a sweet. For a while, she was sent to live with relatives in Elmira, New York; the reasons were never clear to me, I am guessing it was not an unusual thing to do in those days, but why her? Because she was the oldest, or was there an affection for her that wasn't available at home? She lived apart for a few years, then returned when my grandparents moved to Buffalo, going as far as the ninth grade before getting a job as a waitress in a restaurant where my grandmother was a cook and grandfather was a porter till World War II began and he got a job in a toolmaking plant.
She taught me how to string wild strawberries on a long stem of grass, to hold a blade of grass between my thumbs as a reed for a whistle; to wrap waxed paper around a comb to make a kazoo,
to watch for falling stars, to make do with what I had. Go find a stick to play with, she'd tell me. Okay. I had a great collection of sticks. She found fossils of corals, or chunks of obsidian to show me; grew roses, taught me not to kill bugs, to be kind to others, to draw a tree. Was she book smart? No. But she was one of the most forgiving practitioners of human benevolence. We were kicked out of a department store once because she stood guard at a drinking fountain labeled "Whites Only" while an elderly black man got a drink. The one marked "Colored" was out of order, it was a hot day, he was wearing a suit, and it was before stores had air conditioning. The floorwalker came over and Mom, who wouldn't open her mouth to say anything, gave him the what for, saying that the man wanted water. You need to leave now, and so we did. Thank you, ma'am, the man had said before he also was removed from the gathering crowd.
The flowering vines on my window sill show brilliant orange, their tubular throats open with white stamens; other are smaller, pale violet with spots, but again, a physiology of open mouths, singing a silent song. It is a rainy day over snow, just as it was in 1999; I remember the ache of the cold but the drive to take care of my Mom pushed me forward; I wish I could have done more for her, but couldn't afford. The best thing I can do for her now is to be someone she would be proud of, to sign my middle name when I can; Dorothy.
Mama, your grandson is getting married next October to a beautiful girl, you would love her; he has grown up and is working in Washington, DC. I'm doing well, the car is hanging on by a thread, but I'm not scared; smaller problems have a way of working out in the end. I hope this finds you well, and I must tell you, I am really happy you didn't name me Merry Christmas like you wanted to. Thank you, Mama. I remember. I dream.
Brian was there already, for I had sent him on ahead in the taxi we had taken to get to the funeral home. I don't remember much of that day after that, except for unpacking the Hefty bags the nursing home had given me and Bri to take my mother's belongings in, but the morning remained clear as any, each minute had it's own title, beginning, middle, and ending till the next breath, the next breath, the last breath.
Today is the anniversary of my mother's death. Someday I will forget it, as sure as everything else will be, except not today. I had visited her that night before, taken to the nursing home by my mother-in-law after she was no longer my mother-in-law. Little did I know it would be the last time I saw my Mom; just two days before, she was up, sitting in her wheelchair, and I wrapped my scarf around her neck, she loved sunflowers so. Didn't know who I was anymore, but that didn't ever bother me; I knew who she was, and chatted with her about people she knew, told her stories, talked of her parents whom she thought were still alive. But there was a marker that gave me a wrenching realization that time was ending; her ankles and feet had blotches of grey. Not pink-grey or blue-grey, but grey as paint, not human flesh. Circulation was shutting down. I left my scarf with her and kissed her goodbye. I love you, too, she said.
That last night, she had developed a high fever, 105°; my brother had visited and told me that as he took her hand, she screamed at the pain and sat straight up in bed, something she had not been capable of in years. I saw her after he had left, curled on her side, able only to nod as if in a dream; sleep, Mom; I love you. She nodded in agreement. The next morning there was a phone call from a nurse saying that if I wanted to see her, I had better get to the nursing home, now. My son and I clambered into a cab that got us there quickly, where my father and brother already were.
The lady who shared her room had been put in the lounge area, my brother and I went in to her room along with Bri. She was on her back, staring at the ceiling, her pupils so wide that you could not see the iris, and breathing in gasps. I am not going into details of the next three hours; suffice to say that she ebbed away softly as a tide leaving the shore. Bare minutes before, as I held her, I felt a wave of dizziness grab me; oh no, I thought, not now; but inside of me came an image of a golden shape ascending against a reddened sky; did it have wings? My brother and I cupped her cheeks as she passed.
Brian and I stayed to gather her belongings, and to make arrangements for her to be picked up. The plastic bags of her belongings went with Bri in the cab after I was dropped off at the funeral home to sign papers. Sludging through the snow and ice underscored the hollow shock of losing her, in spite of her incapacities visited by old age and the eventuality of life.
Who was she? Born in 1920, she knew the Depression, of going without, of gathering hickory nuts in the woods for a sweet. For a while, she was sent to live with relatives in Elmira, New York; the reasons were never clear to me, I am guessing it was not an unusual thing to do in those days, but why her? Because she was the oldest, or was there an affection for her that wasn't available at home? She lived apart for a few years, then returned when my grandparents moved to Buffalo, going as far as the ninth grade before getting a job as a waitress in a restaurant where my grandmother was a cook and grandfather was a porter till World War II began and he got a job in a toolmaking plant.
She taught me how to string wild strawberries on a long stem of grass, to hold a blade of grass between my thumbs as a reed for a whistle; to wrap waxed paper around a comb to make a kazoo,
to watch for falling stars, to make do with what I had. Go find a stick to play with, she'd tell me. Okay. I had a great collection of sticks. She found fossils of corals, or chunks of obsidian to show me; grew roses, taught me not to kill bugs, to be kind to others, to draw a tree. Was she book smart? No. But she was one of the most forgiving practitioners of human benevolence. We were kicked out of a department store once because she stood guard at a drinking fountain labeled "Whites Only" while an elderly black man got a drink. The one marked "Colored" was out of order, it was a hot day, he was wearing a suit, and it was before stores had air conditioning. The floorwalker came over and Mom, who wouldn't open her mouth to say anything, gave him the what for, saying that the man wanted water. You need to leave now, and so we did. Thank you, ma'am, the man had said before he also was removed from the gathering crowd.
The flowering vines on my window sill show brilliant orange, their tubular throats open with white stamens; other are smaller, pale violet with spots, but again, a physiology of open mouths, singing a silent song. It is a rainy day over snow, just as it was in 1999; I remember the ache of the cold but the drive to take care of my Mom pushed me forward; I wish I could have done more for her, but couldn't afford. The best thing I can do for her now is to be someone she would be proud of, to sign my middle name when I can; Dorothy.
Mama, your grandson is getting married next October to a beautiful girl, you would love her; he has grown up and is working in Washington, DC. I'm doing well, the car is hanging on by a thread, but I'm not scared; smaller problems have a way of working out in the end. I hope this finds you well, and I must tell you, I am really happy you didn't name me Merry Christmas like you wanted to. Thank you, Mama. I remember. I dream.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
News Flash: First Graders Understand Silent Film
And just how old is a first grade kid? Ranges from 5-6 years old, and so that means their taste in humor is as sophisticated as one of this week's spelling words, which is "but". Studying the short /u/, you see. However, when writing the word on the board for them to copy into their journals, I am supposed to sound it out then say it, "buh-uh-ttt, but". Snickers are barely stifled, and I hear, "Ms. Coburn said but." I hear the word repeated several times until I glance over my shoulder at the miscreants, then return to the board. Repeat the roster of six words with me, boys and girls: sun, run, fun, but....BUT!! Wooooohoooheehooohahahahahhaaa!!! Okay. By the second day, they're over it.
I have two runners; what's that, you think; well it refers to students who either get so overwrought that they bolt out of the classroom because you insist they put their name on the paper, or just think it's fine to go visit their cousin in the third grade down the hall up on the next floor when I let them go to the bathroom and then it's Hiyo Silver!
So because I have runners, I am supposed to tag them, but how the hell can that happen without the kid ripping it off as fast as they are made, unless administration allows staples. That part was a rough day; the kids were tired, cranky, and it was 1:30 in the afternoon. This, I thought, is a perfect time for Social Studies, yeah, Social Studies; so I prepped the kids in case any one of the higher ups, like my boss, walked in while the lesson was going on. Girls and boys, I have a treat for you, this is a movie where there was NO TALKING, they hadn't figured out how to record sound on film so you could hear the actors speaking. They put signs in the movie to read, called intertitles; let's see which words you know, and for our observation, I want you to be able to tell me what part you liked best. This is history, how they watched movies in the old days. If anybody asks you, THIS IS HISTORY. Six year olds will throw you under the bus if they think it means they will get an M&M.
My laptop was connected to the Promethean board, and I punched up Buster Keaton's "The Scarecrow". The piano accompanying the film was quick, punctual, and accentuated Buster's various dilemmas. They liked the breakfast table scene with the hanging condiments; when breakfast was over and Buster and Eddie Cline dumped the remains down a chute to the pigs, my inner city kids yelled LOOKIT THE COWS!
These scenes got laughs: anytime Buster fell or did a roll; Sibyl Seely snapping her fingers under Joe Keaton's nose with his missed kick of retaliation; Luke the Dog chasing Buster, climbing the ladder, running around the top of the stone structure after Buster, then diving into the hay was a very big attraction. I GOT A PIT BULL AT HOME. MY DOG CAN DO THAT TOO! Buster, scooped into the winnowing machine, and then being ejected in his underwear elicted EEWWWWs. His dressing himself as a scarecrow and kicking the two men arguing got the loudest laughs, the scene where he walks across the water on his hands received admiring whispers of lookit that, that's awesome! Buster slid down a bank and took off running; my guys helped him out by taunting the pursuing men, BUH BYE SUCKAHS. The largest participation happened when he tried riding the replica of a horse; the kids kept yelling "THAT'S NOT REAL, THAT'S A FAKE HORSE, congratulating themselves that they were smarter than that guy on the screen.
The closing frames got a big laugh, and it went by so quick I was surprised the class caught it; Buster, after being submerged, stood up and spat out a stream of water. The kids roared, then clapped as the last intertitle announcing the end appeared. Lights came back on, and we discussed what they saw that was different, what they thought was funny, did they like a film where you couldn't hear what people were saying? Overwhelmingly so. My observational one said it well, "The piano did the talking." Brilliant child, not bad for 6 years old. Welcome to the Coburn Film Historical Social Studies Find a Word You Can Read and Learn About Buster Series.
When the moon rose earlier, just before five p.m., it was a paten, a gong, the polished breastplate of an idol's armor; rose gold and exalted as it ascended, phantasms reaching out from either side, like the halo surrounding an angel's tumbled hair. Now silver, it sees you as well as me, busy in life, pushing on, dragged forward by the sun; yet, pause and wait under this celestial waxing. Tomorrow will be a full moon, let your lunacy shiver through your core and become, fall, tilt the balance; rock the leveling scales and find your dearest dream, the one that will and has been with you always.
Sleep, the moon will watch over you, the stars shall echo your sighs.
I have two runners; what's that, you think; well it refers to students who either get so overwrought that they bolt out of the classroom because you insist they put their name on the paper, or just think it's fine to go visit their cousin in the third grade down the hall up on the next floor when I let them go to the bathroom and then it's Hiyo Silver!
So because I have runners, I am supposed to tag them, but how the hell can that happen without the kid ripping it off as fast as they are made, unless administration allows staples. That part was a rough day; the kids were tired, cranky, and it was 1:30 in the afternoon. This, I thought, is a perfect time for Social Studies, yeah, Social Studies; so I prepped the kids in case any one of the higher ups, like my boss, walked in while the lesson was going on. Girls and boys, I have a treat for you, this is a movie where there was NO TALKING, they hadn't figured out how to record sound on film so you could hear the actors speaking. They put signs in the movie to read, called intertitles; let's see which words you know, and for our observation, I want you to be able to tell me what part you liked best. This is history, how they watched movies in the old days. If anybody asks you, THIS IS HISTORY. Six year olds will throw you under the bus if they think it means they will get an M&M.
My laptop was connected to the Promethean board, and I punched up Buster Keaton's "The Scarecrow". The piano accompanying the film was quick, punctual, and accentuated Buster's various dilemmas. They liked the breakfast table scene with the hanging condiments; when breakfast was over and Buster and Eddie Cline dumped the remains down a chute to the pigs, my inner city kids yelled LOOKIT THE COWS!
These scenes got laughs: anytime Buster fell or did a roll; Sibyl Seely snapping her fingers under Joe Keaton's nose with his missed kick of retaliation; Luke the Dog chasing Buster, climbing the ladder, running around the top of the stone structure after Buster, then diving into the hay was a very big attraction. I GOT A PIT BULL AT HOME. MY DOG CAN DO THAT TOO! Buster, scooped into the winnowing machine, and then being ejected in his underwear elicted EEWWWWs. His dressing himself as a scarecrow and kicking the two men arguing got the loudest laughs, the scene where he walks across the water on his hands received admiring whispers of lookit that, that's awesome! Buster slid down a bank and took off running; my guys helped him out by taunting the pursuing men, BUH BYE SUCKAHS. The largest participation happened when he tried riding the replica of a horse; the kids kept yelling "THAT'S NOT REAL, THAT'S A FAKE HORSE, congratulating themselves that they were smarter than that guy on the screen.
The closing frames got a big laugh, and it went by so quick I was surprised the class caught it; Buster, after being submerged, stood up and spat out a stream of water. The kids roared, then clapped as the last intertitle announcing the end appeared. Lights came back on, and we discussed what they saw that was different, what they thought was funny, did they like a film where you couldn't hear what people were saying? Overwhelmingly so. My observational one said it well, "The piano did the talking." Brilliant child, not bad for 6 years old. Welcome to the Coburn Film Historical Social Studies Find a Word You Can Read and Learn About Buster Series.
When the moon rose earlier, just before five p.m., it was a paten, a gong, the polished breastplate of an idol's armor; rose gold and exalted as it ascended, phantasms reaching out from either side, like the halo surrounding an angel's tumbled hair. Now silver, it sees you as well as me, busy in life, pushing on, dragged forward by the sun; yet, pause and wait under this celestial waxing. Tomorrow will be a full moon, let your lunacy shiver through your core and become, fall, tilt the balance; rock the leveling scales and find your dearest dream, the one that will and has been with you always.
Sleep, the moon will watch over you, the stars shall echo your sighs.
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