Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Sandpiper




Charles Bronson
is just about to attach the head
to the bull of driftwood
adjacent to where the bonfire lay
(and the revelers play, the corybantes? the celebrants.)
and the camera angle then
puts the fire squarely under the bull's belly
as it pulls away, saying
a fire in the belly, maybe, but really
it's a fire ~to~ the belly, anyway
the whole scene is about the bullishness
of that version of the 1960's art market
for the artist Elizabeth Taylor
who has just gotten her first show
after selling two paintings at the gallery,
and really, the bull, the art of whoever made that bull
of driftwood, who designed that shot
is somehow greater than the entire film
which seems too much like Liz and Dick
doing some Hollywood version of their own skid
I suppose Keogh Gleason made the bull
which I also ruin in turn
by imagining Bob Denver returning to the scene
as Moses crossed with Gilligan
come down from the sea cliff bungalow
and then subsequently Liz as Ginger
and Dick as the Professor
and Thurston Howell the third
as God almighty but still sort of blind
and bumbly like Mr. Magoo
but looking more like
John Huston crossed with
John Baldessari.


1 comment:

  1. I'm waving Thurston Howell the third pom poms in the front row at the talent show and am rushing the stage to get your autograph. .. Love these.

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Irrony Observes The Earthing.