Pretty Died Up
" . . . That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful."
" . . . Beauty of whatever kind . . . invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones."
" . . . I asked myself - 'Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most menacholy'? Death - was the obvious reply. "And when,' I said, 'is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?' From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious - 'When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world - and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover.'"
Edgar Allen Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition"
In July of 1993 my sisters and I had late afternoon hours to kill in a motel in Hayward, Wisconsin. Never mind the family history, the thin-lipped silences among the sunlight filtered in slanting slices through the second growth pines, the soft sand soil under bare feet hot from driving. The motel had MTV, which was featuring its Top 100 Videos of "all time," meaning, I guess, the ten years it had been on the air. By the time all three of us were back in the motel room, spread out on kingsize spreads in absract green and gold "contemporary" prints," they were down (or up) to the top five. We tried to predict: "Material Girl"? "Billie Jean"? I had the edge in popular culture, since Brigit and Sheila both had real jobs.
But both of those showed up before number one. Even Dire Straits and those two great Peter Gabriel videos had come and gone. I sensed Brigit losing interest. But I had to know. And then it bloomed on the screen, a dark flower of inevitability: Guns 'N' Roses' "November Rain."
Because Poe was right. Nothing more excites the soul than the death of a supermodel. Except for some of us. For some of us, me that summer and six years old in religious school in North Carolina and last Saturday at the counter of Krauszers for cigarettes suddenly stunned by the angel face of boy assembling a pile of goods in front of me--for me nothing excites the soul like the death of a beautiful boy. And I think Patti Smith touched that nerve with Johnny and the locker, when I first listened to Horses alone in my dorm room at Princeton. She knew.
I think she is still touching that nerve. "The deer don't do that." The daughter is safe.
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Poe, "Annabel Lee"
" . . . Beauty of whatever kind . . . invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones."
" . . . I asked myself - 'Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most menacholy'? Death - was the obvious reply. "And when,' I said, 'is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?' From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious - 'When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world - and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover.'"
Edgar Allen Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition"
In July of 1993 my sisters and I had late afternoon hours to kill in a motel in Hayward, Wisconsin. Never mind the family history, the thin-lipped silences among the sunlight filtered in slanting slices through the second growth pines, the soft sand soil under bare feet hot from driving. The motel had MTV, which was featuring its Top 100 Videos of "all time," meaning, I guess, the ten years it had been on the air. By the time all three of us were back in the motel room, spread out on kingsize spreads in absract green and gold "contemporary" prints," they were down (or up) to the top five. We tried to predict: "Material Girl"? "Billie Jean"? I had the edge in popular culture, since Brigit and Sheila both had real jobs.
But both of those showed up before number one. Even Dire Straits and those two great Peter Gabriel videos had come and gone. I sensed Brigit losing interest. But I had to know. And then it bloomed on the screen, a dark flower of inevitability: Guns 'N' Roses' "November Rain."
Because Poe was right. Nothing more excites the soul than the death of a supermodel. Except for some of us. For some of us, me that summer and six years old in religious school in North Carolina and last Saturday at the counter of Krauszers for cigarettes suddenly stunned by the angel face of boy assembling a pile of goods in front of me--for me nothing excites the soul like the death of a beautiful boy. And I think Patti Smith touched that nerve with Johnny and the locker, when I first listened to Horses alone in my dorm room at Princeton. She knew.
I think she is still touching that nerve. "The deer don't do that." The daughter is safe.
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Poe, "Annabel Lee"
posted by MM at 1:55 AM
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