Hal O'Brien

I was reading a profile of Daniel Craig in the New York Times and was reminded through his credits of Sylvia, a biopic of Sylvia Plath with Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead, and Craig playing her husband, Ted Hughes.

That got me to thinking of a different movie of a poetic couple, Tom & Viv. akirlu and I saw it when it came out, and it always struck me as odd that one could make a movie of T.S. Eliot's life, with an emphasis on his poetry, no less, and somehow not have Ezra Pound as even a character. I think I understand the motivation -- the idea is to tease out how important Viv was to Tom's poetry, and you can't really have such a big "other" influence rolling around in there, dramatically.

My mind then flitted to an assessment of Pound written by Cyril Connolly in his book, The Evening Colonnade. Connolly visited Pound in Rapallo in 1967, and we get this, with all the connections laid out:

Pound's attitude to his own work distressed me. He claims it is all rubbish, that the Cantos have no basic structure; he suffers from despondency and anxiety about trifles. I read him an article of mine, "The Breakthrough in Modern Verse" from Previous Convictions. He denied, by the way, having thrown Frost over his back by ju-jitsu in a restaurant (Frost's story) but his only comment was "I'm sorry you gave yourself the bother of so much trouble." "Well I'm the best judge of that," I answered, and reminded him that if he had not existed, Yeats might be remembered only for Innisfree, Joyce have lived and died in the Berlitz School, Eliot remained in his bank, Hemingway at his sports column, Confucius, Cavalcanti, Provençal and the East-West synthesis indefinitely postponed: he had given the world a frisson nouveau and taught us a new way to look at water. {emphasis added}

Lessee...

* Job interview scheduled, then cancelled. (Now rescheduled.)

* Friend arriving from out of town scheduled for pickup at the airport, then cancelled. (Now rescheduled.)

* E-mail from a favorite writer/novelist who said he found me by googling the title of his book and finding my flattering (but heartfelt) comments about him.

* E-mail from another writer who let me see a pre-pub draft of an article, and asked for my comments. I've now seen the published form of the article, and he took my suggestions nearly verbatim. I suddenly feel like a speechwriter for the President on State of the Union night -- "That sentence! I wrote that!"

* E-mail from yet a third writer well-known (nay, famous) for not replying to his e-mail, thanking me for a pointer I sent him.

* Oh, yeah, that whole ice storm thing.

* Yesterday, the most personally significant legal hearing I've had to attend.

* Learning yesterday night that my former headmaster at my old prep school, the man who performed our wedding ceremony, died on 2 Jan. I learned this because his grand-daughter has an LJ that I found.

* Posting to an online forum about how I met the hostess. Linking in that post to the site of the common friend who was the online link through whom we met, one for whom I still have deep feelings. Having her read her referral logs, send me e-mail, and generally let me know she's back in the country after having moved away (although I already knew that).

Stressed yet? :)