Casablanca (1942) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/ won overwhelming #1 status as best movie of all time in a BAFTA membership vote a few years ago, according to BJ Wexler.
I see the Writers Guild of America voted the screenplay the best of all time in April 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4890590.stm ... but I can't find the BAFTA award. It's not listed in IMDb.
Ah well. Casablanca has my vote for best of all time. Perhaps yours too Momma ... perhaps not ... but oh we both loved this movie ...
For me most of all perhaps because it is so much a delightful, tortured, romantic, wonderful masterpiece of your generation Momma ...
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
I love you
I love you
I love you
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Casablanca: "One of the most cherished movies of all time"
The OETA Movie Club is showing Casablanca tonite ... and "the popcorn man", BJ Wexler, describes this wonderful classic as "one of the most cherished movies of all time" ... I couldn't agree more.
Oh Momma oh Momma oh Momma ...
How I wish you were here to watch this with me ... as we have so many times before ... oh Momma ...
Oh Momma
Oh Momma how I miss you
I miss you so so so so much
I miss you
O Lord Jesus take good care of my Good Momma
Oh what a good movie
About your generation oh Momma
The Greatest Generation
Indeed
Charles Delacroix
Oh Momma oh Momma oh Momma ...
How I wish you were here to watch this with me ... as we have so many times before ... oh Momma ...
Oh Momma
Oh Momma how I miss you
I miss you so so so so much
I miss you
O Lord Jesus take good care of my Good Momma
Oh what a good movie
About your generation oh Momma
The Greatest Generation
Indeed
Charles Delacroix
Saturday, September 13, 2008
James Fenimore Cooper and Momma
Momma, the 2nd movie on the Movie Club tonite is a film version of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans ... oh how you loved James Fenimore Cooper.
This film version is that of 1936 with Randolph Scott as Hawkeye ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027869/ ... which is the best version according to BJ Wexler ... "the popcorn man" ... http://www.oeta.onenet.net/local/movie.html ...
This film version is that of 1936 with Randolph Scott as Hawkeye ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027869/ ... which is the best version according to BJ Wexler ... "the popcorn man" ... http://www.oeta.onenet.net/local/movie.html ...
Momma's Generation, & Witness for the Prosecution
Witness for the Prosecution http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051201/ grabbed my attention and has been ... in its later parts ... but oh Momma ... one of the most fascinatingly complex stories I've seen in awhile ...
And the Charles Laughton character ... full of worry, full of stress ... and with a heart condition ... reminder to me, Lord, that even in Momma's generation there were dark, horribly challenging everything ... just like here and now ... just like everytime and everyplace ... as I suppose ...
The very ending ... in which the Laughton character recovers and sets off to prepare a legal defense that was the reverse of anything he contemplated ... oh Momma that is so your generation too ... something happens, just deal with it.
I love you Momma ... and I love you Lord ...
And the Charles Laughton character ... full of worry, full of stress ... and with a heart condition ... reminder to me, Lord, that even in Momma's generation there were dark, horribly challenging everything ... just like here and now ... just like everytime and everyplace ... as I suppose ...
The very ending ... in which the Laughton character recovers and sets off to prepare a legal defense that was the reverse of anything he contemplated ... oh Momma that is so your generation too ... something happens, just deal with it.
I love you Momma ... and I love you Lord ...
Tyrone Power ... and Dad
I'm still watching Witness for the Prosecution (1957) ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051201/ ... and oh my Tyrone Power looks so much like my father ... his hair is almost exactly the same ... amazing...
Witness for the Prosecution
I'm watching Witness for the Prosecution (1957) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051201/ on OETA's Movie Club.
And yes the men and women all look like Mom and Dad really ...
This was your generation Momma
Oh I wish you were here to watch this with me Momma. We would have talked about Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton and perhaps others you might have recognized and talked about in this wonderful movie.
Oh Momma.
I love you and miss you.
I love you Jesus
Please please please Lord Jesus take good care of my good Momma.
I love you.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John Chrysostom
And yes the men and women all look like Mom and Dad really ...
This was your generation Momma
Oh I wish you were here to watch this with me Momma. We would have talked about Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton and perhaps others you might have recognized and talked about in this wonderful movie.
Oh Momma.
I love you and miss you.
I love you Jesus
Please please please Lord Jesus take good care of my good Momma.
I love you.
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John Chrysostom
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Plan Addendum: Feeling and Feeling and Feeling
I need to keep going places where we've gone, Momma, you and I, and you and I and Spooky.
Like yesterday ... I went to a movie ... then to the bookstore for that book on Grief, & got some Holy Cards - St Dismas and Nomen Mariae and Pieta - and then to Woodward Park, and the Rose Garden. I parked where we used to park, and walked where we used to walk, and sat where we used to sit ... and read and prayed and thought and felt and felt and felt ... yes, mostly felt, what it was like then, what it is like now ...
There were no squirrels around where I was sitting, so I couldn't feed them the popcorn I brought. But maybe another day ...
I did. last evening, walk the circuit on the path on the crest of the berm around the flood control basin just NW of Memorial Drive UMC. Oh Momma. How many times we went there ... you could only sit in the car ... and I would take Spooky for a walk around the circuit ... well Spooky and I have kept going there since you've been gone .. the last time we were both there was I think 2 weeks ago tomorrow. Oh I can't say what I was feeling walking there last night ... without Spooky ...
Wrong ... everything felt wrong .... and still feels ... WRONG
That book confirmed as much and seemed to support my feelings on this and I'm sure that's one reason I got it ... the feelings of a Job, the feelings of Jesus on the Cross when he cried out, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Those are sacred feelings as unpleasant as they may be and I have no desire to lose such a precious precous gift.
Of horror, of disjunction, of wrongness, of alienation, of sorrow, of anger, of hurting and hurting and hurting ... and aching and aching and aching ...
because you are gone Momma .. you are gone and the void is not filled and cannot be filled ...
Yet even this is a Ikon of God
Dionysius was right ... so right ... so was St John of the Cross ... so were all on the Via Negative ... in Your Absence, there you Are, O Lord. Feeling that enormous loss, that gaping wound, that spearthrust in Your Side O Christ, and in the wounded, bleeding side of humanity, of all this world, in that Void is the Need and the Longing and the utter Desolation that cries out for You ... and which reflects You, as an Ikon, albeit a Mirror Image, of You ... like a mold crying out to be filled by You, yet in Your absence, the mold gives a true, tho reverse, image of You ... and of you Momma ... and of you Spooky ... both of you Imago Dei ...
Oh God
Oh God
Oh God
Take away not these feelings of hurt and pain and loss
These are feelings that proclaim Momma's Absence and Spooky's Absence ... and Your Absence
And therefore they proclaim Momma's Presence and Spooky's Presence and YOUR Presence.
Be Present for me O My God O how I need you
Gaping wound am I gaping need am I
Where I lack ... that is, in everything
Be my lack ... that is, my everything
Charles Delacroix
Sunday XXIII in OT
Like yesterday ... I went to a movie ... then to the bookstore for that book on Grief, & got some Holy Cards - St Dismas and Nomen Mariae and Pieta - and then to Woodward Park, and the Rose Garden. I parked where we used to park, and walked where we used to walk, and sat where we used to sit ... and read and prayed and thought and felt and felt and felt ... yes, mostly felt, what it was like then, what it is like now ...
There were no squirrels around where I was sitting, so I couldn't feed them the popcorn I brought. But maybe another day ...
I did. last evening, walk the circuit on the path on the crest of the berm around the flood control basin just NW of Memorial Drive UMC. Oh Momma. How many times we went there ... you could only sit in the car ... and I would take Spooky for a walk around the circuit ... well Spooky and I have kept going there since you've been gone .. the last time we were both there was I think 2 weeks ago tomorrow. Oh I can't say what I was feeling walking there last night ... without Spooky ...
Wrong ... everything felt wrong .... and still feels ... WRONG
That book confirmed as much and seemed to support my feelings on this and I'm sure that's one reason I got it ... the feelings of a Job, the feelings of Jesus on the Cross when he cried out, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Those are sacred feelings as unpleasant as they may be and I have no desire to lose such a precious precous gift.
Of horror, of disjunction, of wrongness, of alienation, of sorrow, of anger, of hurting and hurting and hurting ... and aching and aching and aching ...
because you are gone Momma .. you are gone and the void is not filled and cannot be filled ...
Yet even this is a Ikon of God
Dionysius was right ... so right ... so was St John of the Cross ... so were all on the Via Negative ... in Your Absence, there you Are, O Lord. Feeling that enormous loss, that gaping wound, that spearthrust in Your Side O Christ, and in the wounded, bleeding side of humanity, of all this world, in that Void is the Need and the Longing and the utter Desolation that cries out for You ... and which reflects You, as an Ikon, albeit a Mirror Image, of You ... like a mold crying out to be filled by You, yet in Your absence, the mold gives a true, tho reverse, image of You ... and of you Momma ... and of you Spooky ... both of you Imago Dei ...
Oh God
Oh God
Oh God
Take away not these feelings of hurt and pain and loss
These are feelings that proclaim Momma's Absence and Spooky's Absence ... and Your Absence
And therefore they proclaim Momma's Presence and Spooky's Presence and YOUR Presence.
Be Present for me O My God O how I need you
Gaping wound am I gaping need am I
Where I lack ... that is, in everything
Be my lack ... that is, my everything
Charles Delacroix
Sunday XXIII in OT
Functionality and Grief: A Plan
Momma ... Oh God ...
Functionality is facing me as more of a challenge these days than in the past year ...
I met with the dietician on Friday ... and my health is not good ... my diabetes management has been better than it could have been, but my HbA1c is still over 11 ... that's bad, Momma ... and I was out of work for 3 days last week ... mostly stress-driven, grief-driven feeling bad ...
Momma I know you would want me to take better care of myself. I'm trying.
And Spooky died just a little over a week ago ... Aug 29 ... oh Momma ... oh Spooky ...
But I'm trying ...
And health aside I think I've got to to get a little more functional over the next 2 months Momma ... trying to finish getting the house piered, and the mortgage, and then got to get another job. The job stress is very high but I just have to stay there for now to support the mortgagin. And Momma the loan repayment program decertified the work site I'm at ... so big big blow ... and I've got to find another job ...
So ... my short-term goal is to increase my functionality long enough to get through this period. Secondary to The Goal: respond to your passing with as much integrity and authenticity and honor as I can muster by God's Grace in Christ.
So: increase functionality secondary to responding with authenticity to your passing Momma.
I joined a couple of online grief support groups yesterday.
I got a book at the Catholic Book Store by Jerusha Hull McCormack, Grieving: A Beginner's Guide. Humbling title Momma ... but oh ... it's been over a year ... Aug 22 2007 ... but oh Momma ...
I bought some more things to cook up a big stew that I can eat on during the week ... dietician's suggestion ... giving it a try ...
And yesterday I started taking my Prozac. I wrestled with this: I just plain do not want to manipulate my feelings ... but the stress-energy ratio for me these days is just way too high Momma.
For now ... so ... despite my past critique of functionality at the expense of grief ... I am consciously choosing, Momma, to do exactly that to some extent. God I hate this. But I realize that Momma you would yourself support this. You have yourself done this. And I keep asking down at your grave, "how do people do it? how do they do this?" And to some extent I think the answer is: this is how they do it. They do choose functionality at the expense of grief. They have families, they have here-and-now responsibilities, for which functionality is important.
So I am making this choice for now ...
While at the same time shouting as loudly as I can that this is NOT RIGHT, NOT RIGHT, NOT RIGHT.
I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
but it is
it is
it is
But if I'm going to do this where is it I want to go with this. Where do I want to be. What would I like to happen by God's Grace if He should so will.
Goal: Respond with as much authenticity & integrity & honesty to your passing Momma as I can
Means of getting there: Functionality to some degree; Surrender to largest degree
What goal achievement might look like in the Here-and-Now
1. Christ - Mass, prayer, Confession, all the Sacraments and gifts of Holy Church ... the intentional acceptance of God's Grace
2. Momma & Spooky Visits - Keep visiting Momma's grave ev morning & evening, continue Office for the Dead MP and EP. OOR I used to do daily, don't do it as much now, but may continue intermittently God willing. Visit Spooky's grave in the back yard daily.
3. Own & maintain home: Mom's former home. Go through her things ... her poems, her writings Dad's letters, everything ... slowly, gradually ...
4. Job -new job with lower stress. Be open to getting out of the profession temporarily at least and geting a "recovery job" if finances permit.
5. Movies - key stress reliever, keep them up
6. Diabetes better mgmt ... look into pump, look into gallstone reeval at Doc visit in Dec
Things like counseling - still going to grief counselor; grief groups; Prozac ... all to seek to alleviate features of grief undermining functionality ... but just temporarily as a means to an end, increasing functionality to get to the above.
Oh hell
Oh God
Oh Momma
Oh Momma
Oh Jesus
Have mercy on me help me Lord Jesus
Charles Delacroix
Sunday 23 in OT
Functionality is facing me as more of a challenge these days than in the past year ...
I met with the dietician on Friday ... and my health is not good ... my diabetes management has been better than it could have been, but my HbA1c is still over 11 ... that's bad, Momma ... and I was out of work for 3 days last week ... mostly stress-driven, grief-driven feeling bad ...
Momma I know you would want me to take better care of myself. I'm trying.
And Spooky died just a little over a week ago ... Aug 29 ... oh Momma ... oh Spooky ...
But I'm trying ...
And health aside I think I've got to to get a little more functional over the next 2 months Momma ... trying to finish getting the house piered, and the mortgage, and then got to get another job. The job stress is very high but I just have to stay there for now to support the mortgagin. And Momma the loan repayment program decertified the work site I'm at ... so big big blow ... and I've got to find another job ...
So ... my short-term goal is to increase my functionality long enough to get through this period. Secondary to The Goal: respond to your passing with as much integrity and authenticity and honor as I can muster by God's Grace in Christ.
So: increase functionality secondary to responding with authenticity to your passing Momma.
I joined a couple of online grief support groups yesterday.
I got a book at the Catholic Book Store by Jerusha Hull McCormack, Grieving: A Beginner's Guide. Humbling title Momma ... but oh ... it's been over a year ... Aug 22 2007 ... but oh Momma ...
I bought some more things to cook up a big stew that I can eat on during the week ... dietician's suggestion ... giving it a try ...
And yesterday I started taking my Prozac. I wrestled with this: I just plain do not want to manipulate my feelings ... but the stress-energy ratio for me these days is just way too high Momma.
For now ... so ... despite my past critique of functionality at the expense of grief ... I am consciously choosing, Momma, to do exactly that to some extent. God I hate this. But I realize that Momma you would yourself support this. You have yourself done this. And I keep asking down at your grave, "how do people do it? how do they do this?" And to some extent I think the answer is: this is how they do it. They do choose functionality at the expense of grief. They have families, they have here-and-now responsibilities, for which functionality is important.
So I am making this choice for now ...
While at the same time shouting as loudly as I can that this is NOT RIGHT, NOT RIGHT, NOT RIGHT.
I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
but it is
it is
it is
But if I'm going to do this where is it I want to go with this. Where do I want to be. What would I like to happen by God's Grace if He should so will.
Goal: Respond with as much authenticity & integrity & honesty to your passing Momma as I can
Means of getting there: Functionality to some degree; Surrender to largest degree
What goal achievement might look like in the Here-and-Now
1. Christ - Mass, prayer, Confession, all the Sacraments and gifts of Holy Church ... the intentional acceptance of God's Grace
2. Momma & Spooky Visits - Keep visiting Momma's grave ev morning & evening, continue Office for the Dead MP and EP. OOR I used to do daily, don't do it as much now, but may continue intermittently God willing. Visit Spooky's grave in the back yard daily.
3. Own & maintain home: Mom's former home. Go through her things ... her poems, her writings Dad's letters, everything ... slowly, gradually ...
4. Job -new job with lower stress. Be open to getting out of the profession temporarily at least and geting a "recovery job" if finances permit.
5. Movies - key stress reliever, keep them up
6. Diabetes better mgmt ... look into pump, look into gallstone reeval at Doc visit in Dec
Things like counseling - still going to grief counselor; grief groups; Prozac ... all to seek to alleviate features of grief undermining functionality ... but just temporarily as a means to an end, increasing functionality to get to the above.
Oh hell
Oh God
Oh Momma
Oh Momma
Oh Jesus
Have mercy on me help me Lord Jesus
Charles Delacroix
Sunday 23 in OT
Beautiful flowering bushes Momma
I wish you were here to see them Momma ... red flowers and pink flowers and how you loved red and pink ... I miss you
I miss you
I miss you and the puppy dog so much
so much
so much
I miss you
I miss you and the puppy dog so much
so much
so much
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Here and Now and There and Then
Cant' sleep ... and watching a PBS documentary about a raid on Ploesti from Benghazi. Oh what feelings this brings up. I lived not far from Benghazi ... Momma we were in Tripoli. And all of these men were your generation, the Greatest Generation. Oh God Oh God.
Momma I miss you
Spooky I miss you
I saw a book at Catholic Books that I've just got to get ... it speaks to me about Grief. One chapter title jumps out at me especially: that Nothing Is Right.
Amen Amen and Amen.
Oh God
Oh God
Oh God
Oh God the loneliness
Oh God the pain
yet .... yet of course ...
of course
all I can really say is thank you Lord
Here I am alowed to be here for a few moments
But it still hurts
It still hurts
Well
Only one thing is Necessary
Only One Thing
Just for Today
The Cross
The Cross is the Way of Salvation
Only the Cross
Only you Jesus and your Cross
Momma I miss you
Spooky I miss you
I saw a book at Catholic Books that I've just got to get ... it speaks to me about Grief. One chapter title jumps out at me especially: that Nothing Is Right.
Amen Amen and Amen.
Oh God
Oh God
Oh God
Oh God the loneliness
Oh God the pain
yet .... yet of course ...
of course
all I can really say is thank you Lord
Here I am alowed to be here for a few moments
But it still hurts
It still hurts
Well
Only one thing is Necessary
Only One Thing
Just for Today
The Cross
The Cross is the Way of Salvation
Only the Cross
Only you Jesus and your Cross
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Sarah Palin ... and Momma
I'm sitting here listening to Sarah Palin's acceptance speech ... and oh Momma ...
Momma how I wish you were here
How I wish you were here
Oh Momma I think you would sit in your chair ... right over there ... and me and you we would both be sitting smiling and laughing and clapping ... and I think you would be so proud, so proud, of this woman ... this truly strong woman, a woman like you, Momma ... like you ...
Oh Momma
I love you and miss you so so so so so so so so much
oh how I wish you were here
What a lady this Sarah Palin is
What a lady you were Momma
What a lady
Charles Delacroix
Feast of Pope St Gregory the Great
Momma how I wish you were here
How I wish you were here
Oh Momma I think you would sit in your chair ... right over there ... and me and you we would both be sitting smiling and laughing and clapping ... and I think you would be so proud, so proud, of this woman ... this truly strong woman, a woman like you, Momma ... like you ...
Oh Momma
I love you and miss you so so so so so so so so much
oh how I wish you were here
What a lady this Sarah Palin is
What a lady you were Momma
What a lady
Charles Delacroix
Feast of Pope St Gregory the Great
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