Creative Meditations

Open your history of sculpture, and dwell upon those illustrations which are not the normal, reposeful statues, but the exceptional, such as have been listed for this chapter. Imagine that each dancing, galloping, or fighting figure comes down into the room life-size. Watch it against a dark curtain. Let it go through a series of gestures in harmony with the spirit of the original conception, and as rapidly as possible, not to lose nobility. If you have the necessary elasticity, imagine the figures wearing the costumes of another period, yet retaining in their motions the same essential spirit. Combine them in your mind with one or two kindred figures, enlarged till they fill the end of the room. You have now created the beginning of an Action Photoplay in your own fancy. Vachel Lindsay. The Art of the Moving Picture (Kindle Locations 1083-1088).

Teachers exploring literature can do this activity of creating statues to commemorate scenes in a novel.  Groups of students (3-4 is optimal) pose as a sculpture/sculpture.   The teacher than can take a digital picture and have a gallery of scenes.  The scenes will help students visualize the book they have been working through. 

Library Notes

One can watch a number of the silent films mentioned in Art of the Moving Picture by Vachel Lindsay; thanks to the Internet Archives.Here are the links to enable your study.   I recommend watching the movies with your favorite electronic track (e.g. something from EXFM).
D.W. Griffith's: Birth of a Nation  ; Enoch Arden
Thomas H. Ince: Grandad; The Return of Draw Egan 
Giovanni Pastrone:  Cabiria

Poetry Museum

The old lady said to the cat:— "Cat, cat, kill rat. Rat will not gnaw rope, Rope will not hang butcher, Butcher will not kill ox, Ox will not drink water, Water will not quench fire, Fire will not burn stick, Stick will not beat dog, Dog will not bite pig, Pig will not jump over the stile, And I cannot get home to-night."
The rat began to gnaw the rope, The rope began to hang the butcher, The butcher began to kill the ox, The ox began to drink the water, The water began to quench the fire, The fire began to burn the stick, The stick began to beat the dog, The dog began to bite the pig, The frightened little pig jumped over the stile, And the old lady was able to get home that night.

Vachel Lindsay. The Art of the Moving Picture (Kindle Locations 576-579).
Vachel Lindsay. The Art of the Moving Picture (Kindle Locations 571-574).

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The Art of the Moving Picture

Saloon Magazine Wrote of the book:
"This (1915)1922 book by poet and sometime cultural critic Vachel Lindsay might have been the first to treat the then-new medium of moving pictures as an art form, one that was potentially as rich, complex, mysterious as far older ones, and whose physical and aesthetic properties were only starting to be understood. The highlight of the book might be “The Motion Picture of Fairy Splendor,” which examines the relationship between film storytelling, magic, myths, legends and bedtime stories. It’s discombobulating, in a good way, to read Lindsay’s attempts to grapple with what, precisely, cinema is. Being supposedly sophisticated 21st century people, we all feel as though we know what cinema is, and don’t need to have the basics explained to us, but this is really just vanity and ignorance talking. Bottom line: You haven’t really, seriously thought about movies — what they are, and what they can and cannot do, and become — until you’ve read this book."< (Salon.com)


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One historical significance of the book is the topic of mob mentality. The people of the early twentieth century feared mob riots (we hold these fears as well). They feared that the mob would be greatly by movies as to act out against the civilized world, and take the violence portrayed on the screen into the streets.   Lindsay felt that crowds had the ability to become a wave of destructive force, and that movies could motivate that force.   Films let the emotional catalyst of the crowd. He posed the question:  Can the wave become sacred or is  it bound to hell furry?  Who will strike out when they get emotionally hypnotized by the scene portrayed on the screen.?

  A clip from Dracula by Bram Stoker gives credence to these questions:

50+ States of Movies: Upper Peninsula Michigan.

A Movie About Family 

This is an overlooked twenty point buck of a movie.

A portrait of time.  A portrait of family: some present, some not.  It also shows a way of life, for those who hunt down the buck of their dreams.  This movie has a bit of the Northern Exposure, combined with a bit Mid Summer's Nights Dream atmosphere to it.

 For those not easily offended by a guys need to hunt (or even a girls need to hunt) your family will surely like it.

1st Fifty States of Viewing: Upper Michigan

Long Hot Summer (1956) Review

Faulkner books at times are very difficult to understand; but they are books worth the effort. The books stay with you and shape your understanding of people like ghosts from a haunted time. His books carry the hot muggy atmosphere of the South; at least the south in my imagination.

Ben Quick arrives in Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi after being kicked out of another town for allegedly burning a barn for revenge. Quick is all the gossip! So he sets out towards anywhere but here and finds himself picked up in Frenchmen's Bend a quite hamlet in Mississippi, and finds himself helped out by the Varner Clan.

The Varner family owns everything in Frenchman's Bend. Will Varner the patriarch wants a heritage left for him. He spots potential in Ben Quick. He hires Ben to work in his store. Will thinks his daughter, Clara, a schoolteacher, will never get married. He decides that Ben Quick might make a good husband for Clara to bring some new blood into the family and Frenchmen's Bend.

The Long Hot Summer is a delight. The movie is  a smooth adaptation of six of Faulkner's stories (including the  Hamlet)by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. Scenery  (directed by Joseph LaShelle) is true to the earthy, muggy Southern latitudes.


 Summer time and the living is easy; the banter between Paul Newman and his future wife Joanne Woodward is genuine and a beauty to watch. They match wits like good old sparring partners. 
ORson Welles provides a strong center to the dramatic action.   He is the glue that holds this piece together.  


The music score by Alex North adds a great depth to the dramatic  action.   North conducted other great scores for movies such as, Wise Blood, Spartacus, and the Rose Tattoo.  


One weakness in the movie is that the Southern accents betray the Northern Actors. Too bad they didn't get Southern Boys and girls to play the parts, it would have been better. The girls will love the scenes where Paul Newman does not wear a shirt.